>*t

JOEL REMINGTON FITHfoN

r T

DE WITT CLI NTON

HISTORY

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY

CITY OF NEW YORK.

WITH

PORTRAITS OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE SOCIETY.

WM. OLAND BOURNE. A.M.

NEW YORK:
WM. WOOD & CO., 61 WALKER STREET

LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 188 FLEET STREET.

BERLIN I 8TILKE & VON MUYDEN, LINDEN N. 21.

PARIS : OCSTAVE BOS8ANOE, 25 QCAI YOLTAIKK.

1870.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
WM. OLAND BOURNE,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District

of New York.

. f rim&le,

THE LAST PRESIDENT OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY,

WHOSE SERVICES
DURING THE LONG PERIOD OF THIRTY-FIVE TEAKS

WBBB DEVOTED

TO THE IXTBBE8T8 OF POPULAB EDUCATION IN NEW YORK :
TO

f rastos aito SUmto of \\t $)blit $t$wl

AND TO

THE FRIENDS OF COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION

INDEPENDENT OF SECTARIAN CONTROL,

THIS VOLUME
18 DEDIC ATED BY

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THE HISTOKY OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY OF THE CITY
OF XEW YORK, presented in this volume, has been prepared in
compliance with the request of the Society, and the repeatedly
expressed wishes of numerous friends of the cause of public
education. At the last meeting of the Society previous to its
dissolution, held on July 22, 1853, a resolution was adopted
authorizing " the President and Agent to place at the disposal
of a competent writer such documents in possession of the Socie-
ty as illustrate its rise, progress, and history." This resolution
was not acted on until the close of 1854, when a very numer-
ously attended meeting was held, at which a committee of five
was appointed to superintend the work, and under whose re-
vision it should be finally submitted to the public. This com-
mittee consisted of GEORGE T. TRIMBLE, the President, JOSEPH
B. COLLINS, the Secretary, SAMUEL \V. SETON, the Agent of the
Society, Assistant Superintendent of Common Schools, HIRAM
KETCHUM, and CHARLES E. PIERSON, M.D.

The committee elected a secretary for the performance of the
work, whose fitness for the task was to be found more in the
enthusiasm of his admiration for the Society, and his earnest
sympathy with the cause of public instruction, than any other
merit that he might possess. It is, perhaps, not impertinent to
remark, that the author had for several years previously enter-
tained the purpose of writing a History of the Society, while
there were yet probabilities of its permanence as an educational
establishment.

In the preparation of the History, the author has had the

Vi PREFACE.

assistance and recommendations of the Committee, and has had
occasion to make use of the records of the Corporation of the
city, the City Library, the Society Library, the Library of the
Historical Society, the Journals of the Legislature, and the
numerous records of the schools established by the Society.
The acknowledgments of the author are made for the politeness
and attention he has received from the Committee, to J. "W. C.
LEVERIDGE and W. P. COOLEDGE, late Trustees of the Society, and
also to the Hon. WILLIAM B. MACLAY, the late DAVID T. YALEN-
TINE, Clerk of the Common Council, GEORGE H. MOORE, LL. D.,
Librarian of the Historical Society, RICHARD FIELD, of the late
Manumission Society, and to the late Clerk of the Board of
Education, Hon. ALBERT GILBERT, and also his successor,
THOMAS BOESE, Esq., together with the teachers of the several
schools. Acknowledgments are also due to JAMES McMAs-
TER, Esq., editor of the Freemarfs Journal, and to the editors
of the Commercial Advertiser and Evening Post, for the use of
their files in collecting the materials for the work. The labor
has been rendered less onerous by the courtesies and attentions
which have been so uniformly extended during its progress.

The author will not anticipate criticism upon the style of the
work. He lays no claim to authorship other than that of indus-
trious compilation. His object has been simply to present a
truthful and impartial history of the rise and progress of common
school education in the city of New York, as furnished by the
proceedings of the Public School Society, and the kindred institu-
tions which became identified with it. It was not designed to
give a general history of the Church or other private schools
which preceded the organization of the Society. It has been a
constant aim to compile and present those facts which would be
interesting to the public, or of value for future reference.

While seeking to avoid too much detail, it has been the pur-
pose to omit no fact which might be required to complete the
record or to illustrate a principle.

The author makes no apology for the absence of orn amenta-

PREFACE. Vll

tion, dissertations, or criticisms. The various papers and reports
of the Society contain all that need be said in its defence ; while
the speeches and debates of the learned controversialists, whose
arguments are here collected, afford sufficient relief to the mat-
ter-of-fact style of the History. The large amount of material
clamoring for preservation has excluded original discussion.

The plan of the work is simply chronological. The chapters
are devoted to periods of longer or shorter duration, marked by
some special event, which is made the occasion of a pause in the
narrative. The controversy relative to the school fund, 1822-'25,
the legislation and reorganization of the system in 1826, the
Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum controversy in 1831, and the
great school controversies of 1840-'42, are made the subjects of
special chapters, in which the facts relative thereto are collected
without disturbing the narrative of the text.

During nearly twenty-five years, the Public School Society
was compelled to become the defendant in the various discussions
relative to the sectarian distribution of the Common School
Fund. Having been organized for the express purpose of estab-
lishing schools "for the children of such parents as do not belong
to, or are not provided for ly, any religious society" it bore the
responsibility, in a special manner, of providing a common school
education for the masses of the people. Hence, when the custo-
dians of this broad trust witnessed the efforts made to obtain,
for sectarian uses, the moneys secured by their agency, from a
public which itself called upon the Legislature to be taxed for
this special purpose, they felt that they would have been recreant
to their duty, had they allowed these funds to be disturbed,
without an emphatic protest. How earnestly and ably they
carried on the defence, the pages of this volume will abundantly
show.

In placing on record the several controversies, the author has
preferred to preserve the memorials, speeches, and printed ad-
dresses in full, although some repetition thereby becomes un-
avoidable. He has chosen to do this, rather than by revisions

Vlll PSEFACE.

and abridgements to afford any reader grounds for surmise that
lie had excluded important passages from a desire to conceal on
the one hand, or to magnify on the other. So far as the compass
of the volume would permit, everything is given complete. Not
one line has been omitted from a motive of partiality for the
Society, or of antagonism to its opponents.

It has been deemed proper to insert the various papers and
documents in their order in the text, rather than in the form of
lengthened notes, or an appendix. It is believed that this ar-
rangement will be found the most convenient for the reader.

In the hope that this work will be found valuable in connec-
tion with the interests of popular education, it is committed to

the press.

W. 0. B.

NOTE TO THE READER.

The reader of this volume may perhaps detect occasional errors in the
names of persons introduced in the history. They are requested to communi-
cate all corrections to the author.

All persons having documents, facts, and personal recollections relative to
the Public School Society, or any of its officers in their official capacity, are
requested to communicate them to the author, care of the publishers. All
communications must be accompanied with the name and address of the writer.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY, AND PROGRESS TO THE YEAR 1817.

Large Cities Public Instruction of the Poor City of New York in 1800 Parochial
Charity Schools An Unoccupied Field Proposition to Establish a New School
The First Meeting A Committee Appointed Memorial to the Legislature An
Act of Incorporation Passed The Society Organized The First Board of Trus-
tees Address to the Public Subscriptions The Lancastrian System The New
School Opened Lot of Ground Presented by Col. Rutgers Clothing for Poor
Children Memorial to the Legislature Application to the Common Council
The School Fund " The Free School Society " New Apartments for the School
Grant of Lots for a Building New School House No. 1 Donations Opening
of the School De Witt Clinton's Address The Law Amended School No. 2
Death of Benjamin D. Perkins A School Library Grant of Money by the Legis-
lature Land Presented by Trinity Church Opening of No. 2. Additional Trus-
tees Moral and Religious Instruction Page 1

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY FROM 1817-1822.

New Schools Proposed Lancasterian Teacher from England A Legacy Instruction
of Monitors Economy Discipline School No. 3 School No. 4 School Libra-
ries Teachers Trained Charles Picton The Freemasons Monitors and Ap-
prentices " Morning Schools " New Regulations Manual Shepherd Johnson
Joseph Lancaster Visit to New York Finances Memorial to the Legislature
Grant of $5,000 Address to the Parents and Guardians of Children Sunday
and Sunday Schools The Female Association School No. 4 Opened Death of
John Murray New Building for No. 3 Manual of Instruction State of the
Schools Rev. J. N. Maffit's Address to the Schools School No. 2 Catechism
Adopted Visit of a Committee of the Legislature The Bethel Baptist Church
Special Privileges School No. 5 Plans and Estimates for Extension of the Sys-
tem A Man of Fortune, and a Man in Independent Circumstances Lots for
School No. 5 Purchased The Bethel Baptist Church Page 28-

CHAPTER III.

THE BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH CONTROVERSY.

CONTENTS.

tee, and requested to proceed to Albany Negotiations Between the Two Boards
of Trustees The Bill Laid Over by the Legislature The Bethel Schools The
" Trustees of the Fire-Department Fund " Certificate of Mr. Andrews Certifi-
cate of Mr. Buyce Certificate of Mr. Farden New Church Schools Proceed-
ings in the Common Council Memorial Adopted New Memorials to the Legisla-
ture Proceedings of the Legislature Report of the Committee on Colleges, &c.
Adjournment of the Legislature The Extra Session The Bill Amended The
Common Council to Apportion the School Fund The Bill Becomes a Law The
Controversy Closed Page 48

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORY F.KOM 1822-1826.

The Annual Meeting School-House No. 5 Annual Exhibit and Expenses for 1822
Systematic Visitation " Sections " No. 6 Opened Real Estate Building Fund
1 Corporal Punishment Hiram Ketchum New School Law Application to the
Legislature Committee of Ladies for Visiting Girls' Schools ^School Sections
Appointed School at Bellevue Hospital No. 6 Visit of the Common Council
to the Schools Resolutions Pay System The School Fund Controversy The
Museum Mrs. Scudder Charles Picton Resigns, and Returns to England Gen-
eral La Fayette Visit to New York Inspection of the Schools The New
School Law New Plans The Pay System The Common Council Plans Ap-
proved Proceedings in the Legislature The New Law Name of the Society
Changed " The Public School Society " Reorganization and Measures. .Page 76

CHAPTER V.

HISTOBT FROM 1 826-1 831.

New Schools No. 7 Opened School No. 8 Schools at Harlem, Manhattanville, and
Bloomingdale School No. 9 Columbia College New Locations School No. 10
Organized School No. 11 Finances and Attendance High School The Pay
System Lotteries Sunday Scholars Infant Schools Death of the President,
DE WITT CLINTON New Measures Additional Tax Address to the Public
Vagrancy Visitor Samuel W. Seton Memorials Power to Mortgage and Con-
vey Property The New Tax Obtained The Schools of New York City School
No. 12 School No. 13 The School Fund Application of the Roman Catholic
Orphan Asylum. Page 104

CHAPTER VI.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC ORPHAN ASYLUM AND METHODIST CHARITY

SCHOOL.

Application from the Asylum for a Portion of the School Moneys Memorial and
Remonstrance of the Society Proceedings of the Common Council Address
of the Trustees, and Reasons for their Remonstrance The Methodist Charity
Free School Report of the Law Committee A Proposition Report of the Com-
mittee on Arts and Sciences of the Board of Assistants, on the Application of the
Trustees of the Methodist School Memorial of the Public School Society-
Report of the Committee on Arts, Sciences, and Schools, of the Board of Alder
men Decision Thereon Page 124

CONTENTS. XI

CHAPTER VH.

HISTORY FKOM 1831-1834.

Infant Schools Primary Departments Harlem School Pay System Abolished Lot.
teries Deaf and Dumb Institution Transfer of Property to the Corporation
New Plans Delegation to Boston Primary Schools Female Teachers Em-
ployed Vagrancy and Truantship Ordinance of the Common Council New
Public Schools, Nos. 13 and 14 The Asiatic Cholera Hospital School-Houses
Evening Schools African Free Schools Report on Reorganization Manhattan-
ville Free School Samuel F. Mott Public School No. 15 Opening of No. 14
Normal School Salaries of Teachers Evening Schools Page 149

CHAPTER Vin.

BISHOP DUBOIS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 5. 1834.

Application of Bishop Dubois to the Trustees Action of the Board Committee
Appointed Report of the Committee Expurgation of School-Books. Page 160

CHAPTER IX.

HISTORY CONTINUED. 1834-1839.

Transfer of the African Schools to the Public School Society The Manumission Soci-
ety School for Female Monitors George T. Trimble Transfer of Property to
ihe Corporation Library for Teachers House of Refuge School for Male Moni-
tors Public School No. 16 School for Colored Children Music in No. 10
Death of Lloyd D. Windsor School in Oak Street Superintendent of Repairs
Workshop Loan Schools for German Children Study of French Public
School No. 16 Opened Surplus Revenue and the School Fund Opening of Cen-
tre Street Public School No. 1 Removed to William Street African Schools .
Trustees' Hall Death of Joseph Lancaster Vagrancy Religious Instruction
Primary Schools School for German Children Lots for the Trustees' Hall Pur-
chased Page 1C4

CHAPTER X.

THE EOMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL QUESTION. 1840.

Annual Message of Governor Seward Petition of Roman Catholics to the Common
Council Remonstrance of the Trustees of the Public School Society Remon-
strance of the Executive Committee Commissioners of School Money Commu-
nication from Rev. Felix Varela School Books Roman Catholic Association
The Freeman's Journal Established Public Meetings of Roman Catholics Bishop
Hughes Resolutions Address to the Public Rev. Dr. Pise Catholic Memorial
to the Common Council' Board of Aldermen Committee Appointed Remon-
strance of Public School Society Remonstrance of Methodists Special Meeting
of Common Council to Hear the Petitioners and Remonstrants Speech of Bishop
Hughes Speech of Theodore Sedgwick Speech of Hiram Ketchum Rev. Dr.
Bond Bishop Hughes Samuel F. Mott Second Session Speech of Rev. Dr.
Bond Speech of David M. Reese, M. D. Speech of Rev. John Knox Speech

XU CONTENTS.

of Rev. Dr. Bangs Speech of Rev. Dr. Spring Closing Speech of Bishop
Hughes Rejoinder of Mr. Ketchum Report of the Committee Application of
Roman Catholics for School Fund Distribution Negatived Page 178

CHAPTER XL

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS 1840-1841.

Propositions of Bishop Dubois relative to School-Books Rev. Felix Varela Commit-
tee of Examination and Correspondence Appointed Report of the Committee
Letter of Rev. Felix Varela Letter to the Freeman's Journal by Rev. John
Power, D.D. Letter to Dr. Power from the Committee Address of the Roman
Catholics Reply of the Trustees of the Society Letter to Bishop Hughes
Reply of Bishop Hughes Letter of David Graham to the Society Reply of the
Committee Expurgation of School-Books Page 324

CHAPTER XII.

THE SCHOOL CONTROVERSY OF 1841-1842.

Meeting of Roman Catholics at Washington Hall Addresses by Rev. Dr. Power and
Bishop Hughes Central Committee Appointed Ward Meetings and Committees
Petitions to the Legislature Hon. John L. O'Sullivan's Bill Action of the
House of Assembly Action in the Senate Governor Seward's Message Re-
monstrance from the City of New York Hon. John C. Spencer Report on the
School Question The Committee on Literature Speech of Hiram Ketchum
Memorial and Remonstrance of the Pubh'c School Society Proceedings in the
Senate Speech of Bishop Hughes Public Meetings of Catholics Election of
Members of the Legislature Roman Catholic Ticket Nominated. NOTE. The
Journal of Commerce Review by one of its Contributors Roman Catholic Ex-
communications Bishop Hughes Tristam Shandy. Page 350

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SCHOOL QUESTION OF 1842.

Hon. John C. Spencer The Legislature of 1842 Appointment of Committees Com-
mittee on Colleges, Academies, and Common Schools Hon. William B. Maclay
Hon. John A. Dix Governor Seward's Message Report on the School Question
Proceedings of the Legislature Mr. Maclay's Bill Passed Page 496

CHAPTER XIV.

HISTORY FBOM 1840-1853.

CONTENTS. Xlll

elation Death of Robert C. Cornell, President of the Society Proceedings of
the Society Public School No. 18 Board of Education and Normal Schools
Controversy of the Board of Education with the Society, relative to New Build-
ings Proceedings of both Boards Speeches of Hiram Ketchum, John L. Mason,
and Joseph S. Bosworth, Esqs. Law of March 4, 1848 Death of Lindley Mur-
ray, President of the Society Sale of Property in Oak Street Deficiency
Application to the Board of Education Transfer of Property Proposed Amend-
ments to the School Law Union of the Board of Education and the Society Pro-
posed Loan Sale of Property in Twenty-Fifth Street Sale of Public School
No. 10 , Page 526

CHAPTER XV.

UNION OP THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY AND THE BOARD OF EDU-
CATION 1853.

Corporate and Popular Boards of School Officers Resources Importance of a Uni-
form System Proceedings of the Board of Education Committee of Conference
Appointed Basis of Union Adopted Proposed School Bill Proceedings of the
Society Legislative Compromises Extra Session Bill Passed Commissioners
and Trustees Appointed by the Society Transfer of Property to the Corporation
Report of the Committee Address of Peter Cooper Meeting of the Board
of Education Reception of the Members Appointed by the Society Resolutions
of Hon. Erastus C. Benedict, President of the Board Remarks of William D.
Murphy, Esq Page 676

CHAPTER XVI.

ADMINISTEATION OF THE SOCIETY.

The Lancasteriau System Social Problems Elevation of the Masses Educational
Systems Progress and Development The Public School Society Visitation and
Division of Labor Teachers and Salaries Monitors Economy Workshop
Depository Rewards and Libraries Corporal Punishment Moral Power of the
Teacher Extract from the Manual Lotteries Music Introduced, but Discon-
tinued Vagrancy, Agent, and Visitors How Shall the Poor be Reached ? Com-
pulsory Measures The Social Problem Unsolved Evening Schools The Pay and
Free Systems Pay System Abandoned Moral and Religious Instruction Sec-
tarianism The Position of the Society Sunday Schools and their Influence
Religious and Moral Education Essential to the Welfare of Society Sectarian
Movements Concluding Observations Page 600

CHAPTER XVH.

NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS.

Monitorial Classes Organized Central School for Advanced Studies High Schools
Normal Schools Classical Institute Free Academy Page 645

CHAPTER XVIII.

INFANT SCHOOLS AND PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

Female Association Girls' Schools The Infant-School Society Experiment in No. 10

XIV CONTENTS.

Junior Department of No. 8 Theory of Infant Schools The System Approved
Delegation to Visit Boston Primary Departments Established Female Teach-
ers Introduced to the Schools Primary Schools Established Catalogue of Schools
Under the Care of the Society ... .Page 652

CHAPTER XIX.

i \

SCHOOLS FOB COLORED CHILDREN.

The Manumission Society Organized Objects and Measures School for Colored Chil-
dren Proposed Committee Appointed Report Funds Teachers Employed
School Organized Purchase of a School Site Grant of Land from Frederick Jay
Legacy from Estate of John Murray Evening School The Lancasterian Sys-
tem Adopted Manumission Society Incorporated Change of Location of the
School Grant of Land in William Street by the Corporation Building Erected
School in Mulberry Street General La Fayette C. C. Andrews School No. 3
School No. 4 School No. 5 School No. 6 Transfer to the Public School
Society Proposed Proceedings of the Societies Committees Appointed Author-
ity to Transfer Granted by the Legislature Transfer Completed The Schools
Reorganized New School-House in Laurens Street School for Colored Monitors
Decline of Schools and the Causes Name Changed Dissolution of the Manu-
mission Society Page 666

CHAPTER XX.

HISTORICAL NOTES OF THE SCHOOLS . . . . '. Page 680

APPENDIX . ..Page 715

INTRODUCTION.

AT an early period after the adoption of the Constitution of
the State, the enlightened men of that time took measures to lay
the foundation of a system of common school instruction, which
was endowed by successive appropriations of public lands and
revenues, until it has become one of the most important institu-
tions in the State.

The local circumstances of cities and large towns made spe-
cial organizations of the school systems expedient and necessary,
and called for legislative action to meet the wants of the people.
These modifications of the district system have all been found to
justify the foresight of their projectors.

The system, however, had not become developed at the com-
mencement of the present century to such an extent as to meet
the wants of the city of New York, where the schools of pri-
vate instructors, and the parochial schools, were the only institii-
tions of an educational kind then in existence. The necessities
of a large portion of the population called for some effort on the
part of benevolent men, and the institution known, as the PUB-
LIC SCHOOL SOCIETY was the proud development of those early
labors. The expansion of the system under the administration
of the Society, until it should become the finest in the country,
was fondly looked for by its friends ; and their plans would
doubtless have been realized under their control, had they not
been anticipated by the organization of the Board of Education,
in 1842.

The rise, progress, and termination of the Society afford a
noble illustration of the voluntary system in our country, and
presents an example of disinterested and faithful labor seldom,
if ever, equalled. The long periods of service of many of the
trustees are worthy of special notice, as an evidence of their self-

XVI

INTRODUCTION.

denying and zealous labors. The following schedule shows the
time of service of the gentlemen whose names are given :

Stephen Allen,
Leonard Bleecker,
Micah Baldwin,
James B. Brinsmade,
De Witt Clinton,
Benjamin Clark,
Robert C. Cornell,
William W. Chester,
Joseph B. Collins,
Lyman Cobb,
James F. Depeyster,
Mahlon Day,
John Groshon, Jr.,
John R. Hurd,
Timothy Hedges,
Lewis Halleck,
Hiram Ketchum,
Abraham R. Lawrence,
Lindley Murray,
Samuel F. Mott,
James McBrair,
William Mandeville,
Charles Oakley,
James Palmer,
George Pardow,
Samuel W. Seton,
Najah Taylor,
George T. Trimble,
Samuel Wood,
A. V. .Williams,

It appears, from the above table, that thirty trustees gave
seven hundred and seventy-six years of service to the public
schools, being an average of nearly twenty-five years. In addi-
tion to the above, twenty-five other gentlemen served an average
of fifteen years, among whom were Peter Cooper, Anson G.
Phelps, J. O. Pond, M. D., Pelatiah Perit, Col. Henry Rutgers,

1824-'52

1805-'30

1827-'45

1827-'53

1805-'28

1814^'39

1820-'45

1827-'51

1828-'53

1834-'53

1824-'53

18,29-'53

1827->38; '41-'53

1821-'53

1828-'53

1831-'53

1824-'50

1834-'53

1816-'45

29.

1826-'46

1828-'49

1835-'53

1829-'48

1818-'47

1828-'46

1824-'53

1816-'53

1818-'53

1818-'38

1830-'53

INTRODUCTION. XV11

and James I. Roosevelt, Jr. These facts are probably without a
parallel. The objector to the Public School Society cannot
urge, in this connection, that the men rendering the service were
of an inferior grade, or that their services and duties were either
of an indifferent character or indifferently performed. The list
above given presents a rare collection of men distinguished alike
for their moral and intellectual character, their philanthropy,
their positions as business and professional men, and the stations
which some of them have held in the State. The facts thus pre-
sented will ever be remarkable in the history of public educa-
tion in New York.

One of the grandest features of the system was the opportu-
nity it thus gave to philanthropic men to labor for the public,
untrammelled by political influences and considerations. The
officers were independent of the teachers, as they were of the
intrigues of the political councils, and knew nothing of the polit-
ical opinions of the teachers, or of their personal influence at the
ballot-box. The Society was conducted as a literary and phi
lanthropie institution should ever be entirely free from partisan
interests and attachments.

Its organization and supervision in the higher sphere ot
morals and religion was not less catholic and conservative. Yet,
in reference to the nature and extent of its religious teachings, it
was compelled to pass through a severe ordeal of prejudice and
antagonism. The principles and the practice of the Society in
relation to this delicate duty are so fully exhibited in the pages
of this work, that it would be superfluous to review them in this
place. The author, however, avails himself of the opportunity
afforded by this Introduction, to obtrude the only attempt at a
presentation of his own views which is made in this volume.

Systems of education, however perfectly they may be adapt-
ed to develop the intellectual faculties, and to stimulate the
inquisitiveness of the unfolding mind of youth, must, neverthe-
less, possess other powers and develop other elements of charac-
ter, or they must necessarily fail of their true end. The educa-
tion of man consists not in merely training the eye to see, or
the mind to think, or the observation to seize upon its object of
attention. It consists not in giving it a knowledge of handi-
crafts, or of professions nor in imparting a knowledge of fac-
tors, of exponents and coefficients, of sines and co-sines, of logi-

XV111 INTRODUCTION.

cal processes or of metaphysical subtleties. It is not in impart-
ing a knowledge of facts or principles, as though the mind of
man were a mere tablet of record, or a bundle of abstract ideas.
The highest province of education is that which it gains by its
RELATION an intimate and inseparable relation to the moral cul-
tivation of an immortal being, whose character is to be the sub-
ject of a final award.

There is a wide distinction between mere mental operations
and the moral activities of the soul. An educated man may be
a monster, viewed from the moral standpoint ; but the converse
is not true, for a man whose life is the exhibition of a high
standard of morality must be more or less enlightened ; for an
obedience to a pure moral law involves that acquaintance with
the higher principles of action which unites with it a good de-
gree f intelligence and mental development. Education is of
two kinds : that of a highly advanced moral standard, which is
accompanied with spiritual refinement and elevation ; and a
merely intellectual training, which assigns to the moral a subor-
dinate rank.

Which of these two systems is best adapted to meet the
wants of the State ?

The answer to this question has received, of late years, and
is still receiving, the profound attention of many of the master
minds of both the Old and the New Worlds. In our own coun-
try it is deepened by the imperative law of necessity growing
out of the structure of our political institutions, in which the
popular will governs through the silent and irresistible verdict
of the ballot-box. Old institutions, founded on a firmly com-
pacted basis, which have been strengthened by hundreds of
years of custom and usage, and seem to be invested with a pre-
scriptive and " divine right," may be perpetuated and upheld by
the centralization of power in the hands of the few ; but in the
young and swiftly-extending States of our great confederacy a
power more fluctuating and without centralization a power
divided among millions of citizens, and combined only by the
attractive force of opinions and sympathies a power more ca-
pricious and mighty, which reverses its judgments without noise,
and executes its volitions without arms a power which rolls
over the land with the tremendous pressure of an ocean swelling
on and overbearing e'very obstacle in our land, such a power

INTRODUCTION. XIX

must be controlled and guided, or its exercise will be the destruc-
tion of every thing dear to the citizen and the philanthropist.

If we look at the forces which are in action at the present
time in our country, we shall find them to be somewhat different
from those which operated at the foundation of our institutions.
At that time there was a comparatively high degree of intelli-
gence in certain classes, who were moved, however, not so much
by intellectual convictions as by that sacred obligation of duty
to man and to God, which led them on, " appealing to the Judge
of all the earth for the rectitude of then* intentions." At the
present time, literary and scientific knowledge, or intelligence, is
more popularly diffused ; but while the amount of intelligence is
greater, the moral forces have not increased in proportion. This
arises, in part, from the vast and rapid immigration of a popula-
tion now reaching nearly five hundred thousand per annum, the
most of whom have never enjoyed liberal provisions for their
education, and have been brought up under the State establish-
ments of the Old World. Yet the forces which act now belong
to the same class as those which produced the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution of the United States, but
they are of a lower order. They are not intellectual ; they are
moral. But while the founders of the Government acted from
the very highest moral convictions, multitudes of our recognized
citizens act from impulses, prejudices, and influences which be-
long to the lower grade of moral powers.

The foundation of character is laid in the moral nature. The
heart is exercised while the mind is yet just unfolding its earli-
est power. The child loves before he reasons, and exhibits
anger before he has learned to utter his first monosyllables. His
moral powers are in action long before his judgment has begun
to discriminate between right and wrong. It is only when the
mind, by years of education and a force of character developed
out of the moral nature, has learned to act in certain directions,
that the man may be at all claimed as the subject of simply
intellectual convictions. In truth, it may be asserted that no
man has ever been a moral man simply by convictions gained
from reasoning alone. When truth, honesty, love, temperance,
and self-denial can be demonstrated by mathematical problems
or purely metaphysical abstractions, we may hope to make men
good men and upright citizens by intellectual training alone.

XX INTRODUCTION.

But the profoundest mental acquisitions have no such force.
They fail of exerting a controlling influence in conduct and
character. The crystal, no matter how smooth its planes, no
matter how brilliant and transparent it may be, let it reflect
never so much light, will never be softened and remoulded until
the solvent shall have been applied. So the simply enlightened
mind can never be made to crystallize into beautiful and harmo-
nious proportions of character, unless it be united with the nobil-
ity and fervor of a pure moral nature. Education, while it de-
velops one, must rest, for all its force in the individual and
national life, upon the moulding and superior power of the other.

It is a common remark, that our free institutions depend for
their perpetuity upon the intelligence and virtue of the people.
This is true. But the permanence of a popular form of govern-
ment in this country depends more upon the pure and elevated
moral character of the people than upon its intelligence. Intel-
lect is not enough. The diffusion of knowledge will not secure
permanence and national honor. The only strong, sufficient, and
reliable bond of union and guaranty of our national permanence
is in the virtue of the nation in virtue like that of the men who
framed the Government, inspired by the same motives, controlled
by the same sense, and weighed in the scales of the same solemn
responsibility. Whatever is less than this, or substitutes any
thing else for this, will fall short of the imperative demands of
the national mind and heart.

Regarding the subject in this light, it must be evident that
the moral training of the people becomes an act of self-preserva-
tion for the State. There is no danger to be apprehended to our
civil institutions while every man is governed by a strict rule of
obedience to the moral law. The danger is discernible, and
magnified just in proportion as men violate and overturn this
law in their daily practice.

Here naturally arises the question, how much and what
moral instruction shall be given in schools supported by the
State or towns at the public expense ? There are some who
maintain that secular schools the common schools are not de-
signed to teach systems of morals or of theology, but simply to
afford to the children of the State that amount oi mental train-
ing which shall at least prepare them for entering upon the
duties of citizenship, and be so far a safeguard against the social

INTRODUCTION. X xi

disasters and civil dangers which arise out of an ignorant and
unrefined population. The province of the moral teacher, they
contend, is at the fireside and the place of worship, where each
parent and pastor can teach the moral and religious doctrines
which they severally believe. This view is too narrow, if it is
not impracticable. To divest our school literature of all that is
moral, would be to destroy its best claims. It is safe to say it
can hardly be done. The mere teaching of arithmetical rules,
and the arts of reading and penmanship and grammar, will
never be conducive to the highest purposes of education, while
they may serve a lower. To reject all moral lessons, will be to
proscribe, in one sense, every thing like the moral and religious
principle in the minds of the rising generation. In tens of
thousands of cases it will serve to deprive the young mind and
heart of almost the only certain chance of obtaining moral
teaching. There are many parents who are compelled to labor,
often early and late, for a subsistence. Many are not qualified
to instruct their children, and, if they were, are disinclined,
being both indolent and vicious. As a consequence, the philan-
thropist, the patriot, the Christian, and the State itself, must
step in and exert all their combined power to train up for good
citizenship and for immortality the more than orphaned chil-
dren who throng our thoroughfares.

There is a standard of moral teaching which can be reached,
and easily so, without prejudicing the rights of conscience of
any but those who positively ignore it altogether, and prefer the
dangers of a helmless skepticism to the elevated obligations of
duty. Morality all will agree in teaching, to a greater or less
extent ; but when a child is taught to love good and avoid evil,
and the lessons of moral rectitude are pressed upon his mind,
there is a step higher than this. "Why should he do right?
Now, unless the higher motives of Divine love or displeasure,
and the obligations of the law of God, are written upon his
heart, there is little reason for his doing right except that of in-
terest, convenience, and policy. But selfish appeals to the moral
sense of a child are about as powerful as they are to that of the
convict who finds it inconvenient to be in a State prison
although, had not that condition befallen him, his blind vision
would have persuaded him that it was for his interest to steal
instead of work. Take away all religious motives for the observ-

XX11 mTRODUOTION.

ance of the moral law, and its requirements are made subordi-
nate to a mere principle of selfishness that very principle
which is the root of all our evils.

We are forced, then, to choose one of two paths of action.
We must either reject all moral and the fundamental religious
truths together, or we must teach those principles of duty which
will satisfy the wants of a moral being. To adopt the first
course, would be disastrous to the welfare of society, and fatal to
our civil institutions. To declare that moral lessons shall not be
taught because they require and involve the sanctions of re-
ligion, would be to unhinge all the bonds which maintain social
order and restraint. It would be a surrender of the highest
rights of conscience and of the wants of the soul to a compro-
mise with moral death.

However desirable it be that the moral and religious educa-
tion of the young be conducted by parents, and their recognized
religious instructors, universal moral and religious instruction
will not soon be secured by those means. As already remarked,
thousands of parents have neither the literary nor moral qualifi-
cations to fit them for this work, and the consequences are seen
in the great disregard of law, order, and virtue on the part of
hundreds of thousands of the youth of our land. These children
are growing up like their parents, and will only propagate the
seeds of moral ruin. If the State, then, to secure a system of
common school education in which all shall harmoniously unite,
emasculate the system by rejecting all that moral teaching which
has any true power over the minds and hearts of the young, it
will inaugurate the era of recklessness and corruption, by a
withdrawal of the safeguards against it. There are tens of
thousands kept away from school, not because of the rights of
conscience, but because of the Hunting of conscience, by the im-
perfect and wretched training under which their parents grew
up. Thousands of parents are intemperate, vicious, thriftless,
and improvident. They employ their children in begging, steal-
ing, and imposture, in order to obtain the means for their miser-
able subsistence, and the unhappy growth of the young. This
growth is more than a simply physical growth it is accompa-
nied by a development in moral deformity, a muscular depravity
of heart and soul, which, Samsonlike, snaps the bonds of moral
obligation like threads, and defies the control of the wise and

INTRODUCTION. XX111

good. It is well to talk of the rights of conscience, and to de-
fend them to the last ; but to speak of the rights of conscience
in regard to a class of the people who know no conscience, is to
degrade the question to the lowest level.

Higher ground than this must be taken. It must come to be
received as the doctrine of public education, that morality shall
be taught in all our common schools, if for no other reason than
because it is essential to the safety of the State. It will be far
better to teach morals to the young, than to teach and practise
the laws of legal vengeance and expiation in the hardened crim-
inal. It will be incomparably cheaper to the State to train up
children in morality and industry at the public expense, than to
pay five times the amount to punish and incarcerate one in fifty
of the population over twelve years of age, for crimes against
virtue, order, and human life. It will be a grander achievement
of our institutions to see American youth growing up under the
power of a pure moral code and religious inspiration, than to see
them expert accountants, accomplished penmen, and moral de-
formities.

What is that amount of moral teaching which shall be given
in our schools ? is a question of the greatest importance, and it
must sooner or later press itself upon the people of this country.
The distinction must be fairly drawn between the fundamental
truths of all religion, and those which are recognized by the pro-
fessions of the several sects. All unite in the belief of a GOD
superintending and sustaining all things by His power and good-
ness, and all unite in their estimate of the Holy Scriptures. Yet
there are minor denominational questions which may, and always
will, be excluded from every school. So long, then, as these
fundamental principles are taught, there need be no danger that
the rights of conscience will be invaded. It is only when press-
ing upon the fields of sectarian usages and peculiarities, that any
one can justly complain of invasion of the rights of conscience.
Around the cardinal truths all may unite, if they will. They
who reject them, and refuse to learn these lessons, in common
with their fellow-citizens, have no just ground of complaint.

It is not proposed to construct a national creed for our com-
mon school text-books. There is no danger to be apprehended
from the teaching of the highest moral truths in our schools.
The danger is in their exclusion. But when, beside their exclu-

XXIV INTRODUCTION.

sion, private schools shall be established, to be supported by the
public treasury, the danger will be largely increased. A com-
mon school creed cannot be established by law. Such a legal
abortion would be a grand step toward an ecclesiastical estab-
lishment, and such an establishment would be the precursor of
an era of despotism. A State creed is not necessary to entitle a
nation to a specific religious character. Are Great Britain and
France Christian nations because they have establishments, and
the United States not a Christian nation because it has no estab-
lishment ? Evidently not so. But if either of them is Christian
above the others, then is that character due to our own country,
because here the law of Christian liberty is more fully exhibited
than anywhere else on the globe.

The Creator has endowed us with a class of faculties which
are easily and naturally affected with the ideas of a God, and of
His goodness, compassion, and power. Whether these ideas are
or are not intuitions, which would spring up in the minds of an
isolated and untaught individual or community, is not to the
present purpose. It is enough to know that we are so circum-
stanced that these ideas become a part of our mental habit, and
in some sense constitute our religious nature. It is this convic-
tion which leads the mind to feel a shock at the words of the
blasphemer, and shrinks from the chilling and negative proposi-
tions of the skeptic. It is this religious nature which must be
cherished, fed, and developed, or the nation will become a nation
of skeptics, and virtue almost a forgotten name.

These religious habitudes must be fully recognized in the set-
tlement of this question. The moral nature of man must be
weighed in the balance with all the other mighty considerations
which cluster around it. Whatever the ultimate decision may
be, it seems plain that no system of education can be productive
of very durable advantages which shall entirely reject and ex-
clude that amount of moral teaching which shall not only co-
operate with the lessons of the Sunday school, the church, and
the parent, but which shall aim to impart it where no such
instruction is given.

This fact seems to be too much lost sight of in the discussion
of this whole theme. Were all the children of the people under
that wholesome moral discipline and religious training which is
required to ensure, so far as such instrumentalities can ensure,

INTRODUCTION. XXV

their becoming virtuous and God-fearing members of the com-
munity, the common school could dispense with such lessons as a
prominent feature. Yet the history of the world will show that,
where the most scrupulous care has been taken of the moral
training of the young, the highest estimate has been attached to
its value in connection with literary culture. But while there
are many who jealously maintain the standard of moral training,
there are multitudes who are entirely reckless of these obliga-
tions.

The question, placed in its civil aspect, then, is, Can the
State be safe while hundreds of thousands of its youth are grow-
ing up without any -moral education,? If this question be an-
swered in the negative, we have our justification for making
moral lessons an important part of our system. If, in order to
give the people of the country that education with which they
sympathize, and which they desire their children to enjoy, a few
objectors should be inconvenienced and disregarded, the demand
for rights of conscience on the part of a few should not be a bar
or an offset to the conscientious rights of the rest. There is
nothing taught in our systems of popular education, in any part
of the Union, to which any truly American mind and spirit
might object as a fatal or serious invasion of his rights. Free-
dom is ours, in obedience not to merely intellectual attainments,
but to the pressure of moral and religious obligation upon the
consciences of the noble men who constructed our civil edifice.
This same moral power is to be conservator of our institutions.
It must be so from their very nature. The delegation of politi-
cal power to the hands of half a million or a million of voters
who shall have grown up without moral restraint or education,
will be placing the balance of power in the hands of men whose
ignorance and prejudices will lead them to vote blindly for meas-
ures which will precipitate disaster upon the nation. While an
equilibrium of power may exist between parties of cultivated
men acting under a conscientious regard to duty, the balance of
power, fearful and irresistible in its consequences, will be wield-
ed by the ignorant and the vicious. Partial exhibitions of this
spirit have already been seen since the date of the confederation.
A jealous regard for the rights of conscience must be main-
tained ; but the appeal to this element in our national character,
come from what sources it may, must not be allowed to blind us

XXVI INTRODUCTION.

to the consequences of too strict a construction of the meaning
of the term. To exclude and override all moral teaching in our
common schools, will be to give the ultimate control of our insti-
tutions to a mass of unthinking men, moved by their passions,
and governed by the superior influence of designing but edu^
cated men, destitute of moral principle, and scorning the control
of moral power. Such a state of things would soon see our
happy Union become the prey of a social and civil despotism, in
which the rights of conscience would be altogether obliterated,
and the rule of might would make the rule of right.

The law of Massachusetts embodies a provision which covers
the ground in a manner fully in harmony with the spirit of our
institutions, and, at the same time, meets the wants of the State.
It is as follows :

It shall be the duty of the president, professors, and trustees of the Uni-
versity at Cambridge, and of the several colleges, and of all preceptors and
teachers of academies, and all other instructors of youth, to exert their best
endeavors to impress on the minds of children and youth committed to
their care and instruction the principles of PIETY, JUSTICE, and a SACKED

EEGARD TO TRUTH, LOVE TO THEIR COUNTRY, HUMANITY and UNIVERSAL
BENEVOLENCE, SOBRIETY and FRUGALITY, CHARITY, MODERATION and TEM-
PERANCE, and those other virtues which are the ornament of human society
and the basis upon which a republican constitution is founded ; and it shall be
the duty of such instructors to endeavor to lead their pupils, as their ages
and capacities will admit, into a clear understanding of the tendency of the
above-mentioned virtues, to preserve and perfect a republican constitution, and
secure the blessings of liberty, as well as to promote their future happiness, and
also to point out to them the evil tendency of the opposite vices.

A common school system which does this, teaches religion in
its practical relations to God, to man, and to the State in its
manifestations in the family circle, the highway, and the busi-
ness of life as a child and as a man as a citizen and as a mor-
ally responsible being. It seizes and writes in deep lessons upon
the minds and hearts of youth the principles of religious truth
and conduct, without which no grouping of ideas or principles,
ill the form of any creed whatever, can be called in the least
sense, religion. Divest religion of the principles comprehended
in the above scheme, and its spirit and its practice are alike anni-
hilated. Teach these, and the specific religious preferences or
professions of the parents may be reserved, and properly so, for
inculcation at the domestic or the church altar.

OFFICEES AND TKUSTEES

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY, WITH THEIR TIME OF SERVICE.

PRESIDENTS OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

De Witt Clinton, .
Henry Rutgers, .
Peter A. Jay, . .
Robert C. Cornell,
Lindley Murray,
George T. Trimble,

from 1805 to 1828
" 1828 to 1830
" 1830 to 1837
" 1837 to 1845
" 1845 to 1847
" 1847 to 1853

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

John Murray, Jr., .
Thomas Eddy, .
Leonard Bleecker, .
Robert C. Cornell,
Lindley Murray,
George T. Trimble,
Stephen Allen,
Peter Cooper,

from 1805 to 1820
" 1820 to 1821
1821 to 1830
1830 to 1837
1837 to 1846

1846 to 1847

1847 to 1852
1852 to 1853

TREASURERS.

Leonard Bleecker, .
Rensselaer Havens,
George T. Trimble, .
Samuel F. Mott, .
inthony P. Halsey,
Joshua S. Underbill,

from 1805 to 1819
" 1819 to 1820
" 1820 to 1830
" 1830 to 1843
" 1843 to 1850
" 1850 to 1853

SECRETARIES.

Benjamin D. Perkins, from 1805 to 1810
Thomas Buckley, . . " 1811 to 1818
Lindley Murray, . . " 1818 to 1837
Anthony P. Halsey, . 1837 to 1843
Joseph B. Collins, . . " 1843 to 1853

TRUSTEES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Aspinwall, Gilbert, 1805

Aspinwall, John, .... 1814, '15, '25

Adams, John, 1816 to '22

Allaire, James P., .... 1821, '22
Allen, Stephen, . . . 1824 to '46, '52
Averill, Heraan, 1826 to '34

Averill, Augustin, .... 1839 to '53

Adams, John T., 1840 to '53

Atwood, Geo. W., . .' . . . *. 1842

Atterbury, B. B., 1850 to '53

Anderson, H. H 1851, '52

Bleecker, Leonard, .... 1805 to '30
Burling, William S., ... 1807 to '09
Buckley, Thomas, .... 1810 to '18
Barker," Abraham, .... 1810 to '15

Bethune, Divie, 1810 to '12

Boyd, Samuel, 1813 to '27

Bowne, Walter, .... 1816, '28, '33

Brown, Noah, 1817 to '18

Brown, Adam, 1817 to '18

Britton, Stephen P., 1819

Burtis, Arthur, 1819 to '221826 to '30

Bowne, John L., 1820 to '29

Burtsell, William, .... 1825 to '29

Baldwin, Micah, 1827 to '45

Brinsmade, James B., . . . 1827 to '53

Brumley, Reuben, 1829

Brown, Silas, 1883 to '37

Bussing, Thomas, .... 1835 to '46
Birdsall, William, .... 1837 to '42

Bartlett, Caleb, 1838 to '51

Benjamin, Meigs D., . . . . 1838 to '41
Blaisdell, James H., . . . 1838 to '41
Betts, Geo. W., . . . . 1839 to '41
Blackstone, Wyllb, . . . 1843 to '46

Benedict, H. S., 1845 to '49

Balen, Peter, 1846 to '49

Barton, William, 1847, '48

Burke, W. C., 1848 to '50

Bussing, J. S., 1849 to '51

Bussing, E. K., 1849 to '51

Barrow, H. H., 1849 to '53

Brown, E. H., 1849 to '53

Buckingham, G. A., 1853

Brady, Win. V., Mayor, ex off.., 1847, '48

Clinton, De Witt, .... 1805 to '28
Clarkson, Matthew, . . . 1807 to '09

Clark, Benjamin, 1810 to '39

Collins, Thomas, 1811 to '16

XXVlll

OFFICERS AND TRUSTEES.

Golden, Cadwallader D., . .1812 to '14
Crosby, William B., . . . 1812 to '16
Caldwell, John E., . . . . 1812 to '16
Com stock, Nathan, . . . 1815 to '18

Cooper, Francis, 1818 to '20

Collins, Isaac, 1818 to '27

Cairns, William, 1818 to '22

Cornell, Robert C., ... 1820 to '45
Cowdrey, Samuel, . . 1824, '26, '27, '28

Coles, Isaac U., 1826, '27

Chester, William W., . . . 1827 to '51
Collins, Joseph B., . . . . 1828 to '53

Coit, Levi, 1829, '80

Cox, Abraham L., 1829, '30

Cummings, Thomas, . . . . 1831 to '37
Childs, Samuel R.,. . . . 1832 to '46
Collins, Benjamin S., ... 1832 to '35
Cromwell, Richard, .... 1832, '33
Clapp, Henry W., .... 1833, '34
Cleaveland, Etisha W., . 1834 to '46

Cobb, Lyman, 1834 to '53

Corse, Barney, 1837, '38

Cooper, Peter, 1838 to '53

Curtis, Joseph, 1839 to '53

Chrystie, Albert, 1841 to '47

Cornell, J. F., 1841 to '43

Cummings, John P., . .1843 to '50, '52
Cobb, James N., . . . . 1845, '46

Colden, D. C., 1847 to '50

Clapp, Isaac H., . . . . 1850 to '52

Crosby, R. R., 1851 to '53

Cooledge, W. P., . . . . 1851 to '53

Cock, G. E., 1851 to '53

Clark, E. S., 1852, '53

Clark, Aaron, Mayor, ex, offl. 1837 to '39

De Peyster, Fred'c, 1810 to '15 1838 to '46
Dickinson, Charles, . . . .1812 to '16
Dodge, Daniel L., . . . . 1810, '11, '16

Dean, Israel, 1822 to '28

De Peyster, James F., . . 1824 to '53
Du Bois, Cornelius, .... 1826 to '28
Demilt, Samuel, .... 1828 to '45

Day, Mahlon, 1829 to '53

Delamater, John, .... 1832 to '38
Dwight, Theodore, Jr., . . 1833 to '37
Dunnel, Henry G., . . . 1834 to '37
Davies, Henry E., . . . . 1839 to '43
Durfee, Charles, . . . . 1839 to '46
Denman, Asahel A., ... 1841 to '47
Dusenbury, William, . . . 1845 to '48
D'Aguair, L. H. F., .... 1848 to '50
De Forrest, H. G., . . . 1849

Davenport, John, .... 1849 to '53
Downer, F. W., . . . . 1852

Eddy, Thomas, . . 1805, '12 to '19, '22
Eckford, Henry, . . . . 1817, '19
Ellsworth, Erastus, . 1826 to '29, '31, '32
Everitt, Nicholas C., . . . 1826

Elliott, Daniel, 1837

Ellis, Benjamin, .... 1837 to '53
Edwards, Ogden, .... 1850, '51

Ely, John,

1852

Franklin, Thomas, .... 1805

Franklin, Matthew, . . . 1805 to '09
Franklin, William, . . . . 1807 to '09
Fox, William W., . . . . 1826 to '38

Fish, Hamilton, 1834, '35

Field, Hickson W., 1835 to 'S9 1845 to '46
Ferris, Edward, 1841 to '50

Grinnell, Joseph, . .
Gibbons, Thomas . . .
Groshon, Jno., Jr., 1827 to
Gray, John, . . 1828 to
Glover, Thomas, . . .
Greene, William, Jr., .
Gilbert, Clinton, . . .
Gibbons, James S., . .
Griffing, Samuel, . . .
Gabaudan, A. W., . .
Graham, J. A., . . . .
Goodwin, Eli, ....

. . 1821 to '28
1822

'38 1841 to '53

'31 1847 to '53

1828

. . 1831

. 1835 to '49
. . 1838

. 1840 to '49
. . 1846 to '48

. . 1847

. 1851, '52, '53

Hegeman, Adrian, .... 1807 to '11
Hicks, Samuel, .... 1808 to '09
Hicks, Valentine, .... 1810 to '11
Hicks, Whitehead, . . . 1812 to '22
Havens, Rensselaer, . . . 1818 to '33
Havens, Philetus, .... 1819 to '24
Hicks, Oliver H., .... 1819

Hyde, John E., ... 1819 to '30, '32

Kurd, John R., 1821 to '53

Howard, William, . . . . 1821 to '28
Haines, Charles G., . . . . 1822 to '24
Halstead, Caleb 0., ... 1826 to '37
Hasbrouck, Stephen, . . . 1827 to 'SO
Hedges, Timothy, . . . 1828 to '53

Heard, James, 1830 to '35

Hoi brook, Lowell, . . . 1830

Hallock, Lewis, 1831 to '53

Huntington, Thomas M., . 1831 to '32

Haff, Stephen, 1833 to '37

Halstead, John B., . . . 1833 to '40

Hall, Willis, 1833, '34

Halliday, Robert, .... 1833 to '39

Hoxie, Joseph, 1833 to '35

Halstead, Matthias 0., . . 1834, '35

Haff, James D., 1834 to '37

Halsey, Anthony P., . . . 1834 to '53
Haviland, Edmund,

1835, '36, '38, '39, '40 to '48
Hinsdale, Henry, .... 1835 to '39

Halsted, Oliver, 1838 to '40

Howell, B. B., ..... 1838, '39

Hogan, Robert, 1839 to '41

Holmes, Silas, 1840

Harsen, Jacob, 1841 to 53

Howe, John W., .... 1841 to '63

Harvey, Silas, 1843

Havemeyer, F. C., . 1845, '46 '50 to '53

Horn, James, 1845 to '53

Hawley, Irad, 1 845

Harper, James, 1846 to '49

OFFICERS AND TRUSTEES.

XXIX

Howe, Timothy A., ... 1847 to '51

Howe, B. R, 1847, '48

Hutchinson, E. F., 1848, '49

Hibbard, J. C., 1849

Hepburn, J. C., 1850 to '53

Hibbard, William, .... 1850 to '53

Hussey, G. F., 1851 to '53

Harper, James, Mayor, exofficio, 1844, '45
Havemeyer, W. F., Mayor,

ex officio, . . . 1845, '46 '48, '49

Ireland, G., Jr., ..... 1846 to '51

Johnson, William, .... 1805

James, Samuel, ..... 1818, '19

Jay, Peter A., 1830 to '36

Jewett, Thomas L., ... 1835 to '37

Jay, John C., 1837

Jay, John, 1840, '41

Johnson, Leonard L., 1845, '46 '49 to '53

Jones, Edward, 184 5 to '48

Jones, George F., . . . . 1846, '47

Kirby, Edmund, 1820 to '22

Ketchum, Hiram, 1823, '28 to '34, '41 to '50
Ketchum, Morris, .... 1829 to '31
Knox, Alexander, Jr., . . . 1832

Kennedy, Samuel L., . . . 1834 to '40
Knapp, Shepherd, . . . . 1889 to '41
Kellogg, J. W., . . 1847 1850 to '53

Kellogg, J. R., 1848, "49

Kingsland, A. C., Mayor, ex offi., 1851, '52

Lawrence, John B., . ... 1810 '17

Lorillard, Jacob, 1817, '18

Lord, Eleazer, 1822 to '28

Lee, Gideon, 1822 to '24

Lyon, David 1822

Lovett, James, 1825

Leavitt, J. W., 1826, '27

Lord, Daniel, Jr., .... 1827, '28

Lasala, J. B., 1829

Lawrence, Thomas, ... 1 829

Lockwood, Roe, 1830 to '32

Leveridge, John, . . . 1832, '34 to '36
Lawrence, W. B., . . . . 1834, '35
Lawrence, Abrm. R., . . . 1834 to '53
Lawrence, Richd. M., . . . 1834 to '43
Leggett, T., Jr., . . . . 1842 to '45
Leveridge, J. W. C., . . . 1847 to '53

Lee, Wm. P., 1848 to '53

Leigh, Chas. C., 1850 to '53

Lee, Gideon, Mayor, ex officio, 1833, '34
Lawrence, C.W., Mayor, ex offi., 1834 to '37

Miller, Samuel,
Minturn, Benjamin G.,
Murray, John R.,
Murray, John, Jr.,
Murray, Lindley,
Marshall, Benjamin,

1805
1805

. 1814 to '21
1805, '20, '22
. 18 16 to '45
1818 to '22

Miller, Charles, 1818 to '22

Mason, John, 1820 to '22

Mott, Robert F., .... 1822 to '25

Mead, Henry, 1824 to '28

McDonnell, James J., . . . 1824

McCarthy, Dennis, .... 1825 to '35
Mott, Samuel F., . . . . 1826 to '46
Mercein, Thomas R., . 1827, '34, '35, '36

McBrair, James, 1828 to '49

McDonald, James, . . . 1833 to '40

Morris, Wm. L., 1833 to '39

McElrath, Thomas, . . . 1834 to '39

Maxwell, Hugh, 1834, '35

Morrison, John, .... 1834 to '43
McNevin, Wm. James, . . 1835, '36
Mandeville, William, . . 1835 to '53
Murphy, William D., . . . 1835 to '43
Macy, William H., ... 1838 to '53
Mercein, Wm. A., ... . 1839

Mills, Abner, 1841 to '53

McBride, Abraham, . . . 1843 to '45
Miller, Nehemiah, . . . 1843 to '53
McClure, Alexander, . . . 1845 to '53
Murray, Hamilton, . . . 1845 to '46
Mott, Samuel C., . . . . 1845 to '49
Minturn, Wm. H., ... 1845 to '48
Mason, John L., . ... 1845

McCrackan, John L. H., . 1845 to '46

Merwin, Almon, 1846 to '53

McClain, Orlando D., . . 1847 to '53

Marsh, James, 1848 to '53

Martmdale, S., Jr., . . . 1850 to '52

Mott, J. H., 1850

Mott, M. Hopper, .... 1851 to '53
Morris, R. H., Mayor, ex officio, 1841 to '44
Mickle,A. H., Mayor, ex officio, 1846, '47

Newbold, George, .... 1812 to 13

Kevins, Richard, .... 1829

JJelson, James B., . . . . 1842 to '50

Neilson, William H., . . 1850 to '53

Nelson, George P., .... 1850 to '53

Nevins, David H., . . . . 1850, ! 51

Ogden, John L., .... 1816

Ogden, David L., . . . . 181f.

Ogden, Thomas L., . . . . 1816 to '18

Ogilvie, Peter 1817

Olmstead, James, .... 1822, '23

Olmstead. Ralph, .... 1826,'27

Oakley, Charles, . . . . 1829 to '48

Owen, Thomas, ..... 1836

Ogden, Benjamin, .... 1838

Perkins, Benjamin D., . . . 1805

Palmer, James, .... 1817 to '47

Pintard, John, 1818

Palmer, Drake B., . . . 1826 to '28
Peters, John R , .... 1828 to '33
Palmer, John J., . . . . 1829, '30
Pardow, George, . . . . 1828 to '46
Pearson, I. Greene, . . . 1831, '32
Phelps, Anson G., . . . 1832, '34 to '49

Pollock, James, 1832 to '39

Pond, J. 0., 1833 to '49

Peck, Hiram N., 1834 to '38

XXX

OFFICERS AND TRUSTEES.

Peck, Lewis, 1837

Pierson, Charles E., . . . 1838 to '53
Price, Thompson, .... 1838 to '53

Pent, Pelatiah, 1838 to '53

Page, Richard, .... 1841

Pessinger, George, . . 1841 to '47
Pinckney, Peter, .... 1842 to '46
Palmer, James R., .... 1843

Piercey, Henry R., . . . 1843

Petrie, James S., . . 1845 to '49, '51

Platr, Ebenezer, 1846 to '53

Pinckney, William T., . . 1847 to '53
Patterson, S. P., . ... 1851 to '53

Price, D. W., 1851 to '53

Perkins, R. G., 1852

Potter, Joseph, .... 1852, '53
Paulcling, Wm. Mayor, ex offi. 1826, '27

Rutgers, Henry, . . .
Rathbone, John, Jr., .
Raymond, Eliakim, . .
Roosevelt, James L., .
Roosevelt, James I., Jr.,
Richards, Thomas,

1810 to '30
1823

1824 to '28
1824

1824 to '41

1825 to '29

Rogers, J. Smyth, . 1826, '27, '40 to '51
Robbins, George S., . . . 1826 '27

Richards, Nathaniel, . . . 1828 to '34

Rankiu, John, 1829 '30

Ring, Zebedee, 1832

Rogers, Nathan, .... 1 832 to '39
Roe, Stephen C., .... 1833 to '36
Rockwell, William, 1834, '35, 1840 to '42
Raukin, Robert G., ... 1836 to '37
Russell, Israel, . . . . 1843 to '53
Rosenmiller, Louis A., . 1845, '49,'51 to '53
Reed, Richard, . . 1847, '49, '50 to '53

Redfield, J. S., 1848 to '51

Richmond, T. 0., .... 1852, '53
Riker, R., Recorder, exofficio 1826 to '31

Stevens, Ebenezer,
Strong, Benjamin, .
Spalding, Lyman,
Suckley, George,
Slocum, W. T., . .
Stidell, John, . .
Seton, Samuel W., .
Seaman, William,
Sheldon, Frederick, .
Sedgwick, Robert,
Swan, Benjamin L.,
Shipman, George P.,
Spencer, Reuben,
Smith, Thomas R.,
Stewart, James,
Suydam, Lumbert,
Stone, William L., .
Servoss, Thomas L.,
Stryker, John, . .
Stevens, Linus W.,
Smith, Charles J., .
Schermerhorn, Peter
Stokes, James, . .

. 1812 to '15
. 1812 to '17
. 1818 to '21
. 1818 to '22
1807, '19 to '23
. 1822 to '25
1823 to '53
. . . 18-24
1825 to '32, '38
. . . 1826 to '37
. . 1827 to '35
. . . 1830 to '32
. . . 1831 to '45

1833

. 1833 to '39, '41
. . 1834, '35, '42
. . . 1836 to '38
. . . 1837 to '48
.... 1837, '38
. . 1838, '40, to '53

1838

A., . 1838 to '45
. 1838, '39,41 to '53

Sands, David 1888

Seaman, Willet, . . . . 1838 to '53

Smith, William, 1838 to '50

Stuyvesant, Peter, 1838

Stokes, Edward H., 1839

Sherwood, Burritt, 1839 to '50, '52, '53
Schieffelin, Henry H., . 1840 to '51, '53
Schieffelin, Henry M., . . . 1840 to '63

Schuyler, Philip, 1840

Smith, Washington, 1843

Stillman, Thomas B., 1843 to '50, '52, '53

Smith, Floyd, 1845, '46

Stillman, J. D., . . 1 . . 1846, '47
Stillman, Alfred, .... 1848 to '50

Seymour, Daniel, 1848, '50

Swan, Caleb, 1850 to '53

Stillman, J. D. B., . . 1848, '51 to '58
Skidmore, J. R., . . . . 1851 to '53

Ten Brook, Henry, ... 1805 to '16
Thompson, Jeremiah, . . . 181,1 to '22
Taylor, Najah, . . . . 1816 to '53
Taylor, Thomas C., ... 1817 to '20
Trimble, George T., . . . . 1818 to '53
Torrey, William, .... 1818 to '29
Taylor, Knowles, .... 1826, '27
Taylor, Jeremiah H., . . . 1828 to '34
Tracy, Frederick A., . . . 1831, '32
Thomas, George C., . . . 1833 to '35
Tiemann, Daniel F., ... 1836 to '40
Thorp, George B., ... 1837 to '40

Triglar, John, 1837 to '39

Trench, Joseph, .... 1888 to '40

Talbot, Charles N., 1840, '49

Trimble, Isaac P., .... 1840, '41
Townsend, J. H., . . . . 1848 to '53
Thurston, W. R., Jr., . . . 1848 to '50

Underbill, Joshua, .... 1827 to '30
Underbill, Ira B., .... 1835 to '40
Underbill, Joshua S., . . . 1845 to '53
Underbill, Walter, . . . . 1845 to '53
Underbill, James W., . . 1848 to '53

Van Wagenen, Gerritt H., . 1807 to '1-5
Vanderbilt, John, Jr., . . 1810 to '15
Vandenheuvel, John C., . . 1819, '20
Van Rensselaer, J., . . . 1826 to '28
Van Schaick, Myndert, . .1829 to '31
Van Rensselaer, Jer. H. . 1826 to '36
Verplanck, Gulian C., . . 1834 to '41
Vermilye, Washington R., . 1845 to '53
Vermilye, William M., . . . 1S46, '47
Vanderpoel, Jacob, Jr., . . 1847 to '49
Varnum, J. B., Jr., . . . 1850 to '53
Varian, Isaac L., Mayor, ex offi,. 1839 to '41

Willett, Marinus, 1817

Wood, Samuel, .... 1817 to '38
Withington, John, . . 1818, '20, '21, '22
Weeks, Ezra, . 1818 to '201822 to '27

Wheeler, Solomon, 1822

Wheeler, Andrew C., . . . 1827 to '29

OFFICERS AND TRUSTEES.

XXXI

Willett, Marinus, Jr., 1827

to '84, '37, '38

Wandell, Beuj. C., . . . .

1849 to '53

W^lls James N., ...

1828 to '35

W^ard Isaac

1845 to '53

Wllcox Lewis, . . .

1828 '29

1846 to '53

Wheeler, Samuel G. . .
Waters Talman J., . .

. 1828 to '32
. 1829 to '33

White, Norman P., ...
Wyckoff, A. R., ....

1847 to '49
1847 '48

Wetmore, David W. . .

1829 to '32

Whitlock, W. W., . . .

. 1848 '49

1835 to '40

Waldo, Horace,

1848

Williams, Abraham V., .

. 1880 to '53

Whittemore, W. T., . . .

. 1848 '49

Wells Ovid P., ...
Willets, Edmund, . . .

. 1831 to '37
. 1885 to '46

Wilbur, Jeremiah, ....
Whitlock, W. H., . . . .

1849
1850, '51

Wagstaff, William, . .
Winthrop Benj. R., . .

. 1837 to '39
. 1838 to '53

Warren, Richard, ....
Woodhull, C.S., Mayor, ex off,.,

1850 to '5-2
1849 to '51

Washburn, Joseph W., .
Willets, Samuel, . . .
Willis, William, . . .

. 1838 to '41
. 1840 to '42
. 1841 to '48

Westervelt, J. A., Mayor, ex o
Young, Waldron, ....

fi., 1853
1852

XXX11

RECEIPTS, EXPENDITURES, ETC.

TABLE showing the amount of moneys received and expended during each year
of the existence of the Public School Society, with, the Average Attendance
of Scholars, the Annual Expenses, and the Cost per Scholar, exclusive of
the Purchase of Real Estate, and Cost and Repairs of Buildings.

YBAK.

Receipts.

Expenditures.

Attendance.

Expenses.

Cost.

1807

$4,774.00

$1,163.09

$913.09

$13.04

1808

4,960.10

1,866.53

200

1,429.84

7.14

1809

1,858.01

2,516.52

250

1,637.11

6.54

1810

4,173.47

16,129.54

400

1,554.20

3.89

1811

15,557.68

8,082.45

550

2,639.91

4.54

1812

7,331.45

10,183.73

712

2,500.04

3.89

1813

4,511.00

2,788.13

950

2,788.13

2.93

1814

3,139.00

3,299.06

968

3,299.06

2.80

1815

6,250.95

4,193.61

958

4,193.61

4.21

1816

5,369.44

4,373.20

974

4,373.20

3.80

1817

6,075.08

4,347.30

1,218

4,347.36

3.57

1818

9,174.50

4,049.43

1,218

4,049.43

3.25

1819

10,659.74

19,344.26

1,449

7,376.02

4.75

1820

7,487.70

10,588.37

2,145

6,881.75

2.79

1821

10,025.08

6,128.07

2,811

6,769.55

2.15

1822

10,066.83

10,740.63

3,412

7,456.70

1.37

1823

10,222.82

17,341.45

4,090

7,364.45

1.80

1824

12,973.59

12,464.53

4,384

9,242.03

2.10

1825

16,477.33

14,266.07

4,059

10,266.07

2.52

1826

50,359.36

47,344.99

8,739

10,239.57

2.74

1827

63,969.97

64,724.79

4,564

18,645.68

4.08

1828

36,651.28

41,246.25

5,331

21,030.83

3.94

1829

61,975.60

61,611.18

6,150

22,004.80

3.57

1830

58,625.25

59,157.31

6,178

22,092.93

3.57

1831

117,645.19

117,232.88

6,323

21,938.39

3.47

1832

71,765.38

70,977.20

6,109

24,345.49

3.98

1833

91,792.93

89,650.84

7,826

25,101.95

3.34

1834

95,995.57

91,656.10

12,537

49,823.07

3.97

18S5

108,354.83

115,518.95

17,318

63,749.79

3.68

1836

131,287.29

130,587.18

18,011

69,229.28

3.84

1837

127,224.74

128,342.47

17,932

72,845.69

4.06

1838

148,791.25

129,240.81

19,982

78,484.33

3.99

1839

112,713.25

130,572.95

21,206

100,485.24

4.73

1840

169,771.72

170,792.92

22,955

101,960.21

4.44

1841

155,815.20

156,857.45

23,654

105,398.13

4.45

1842

134,909.96

134,853.16

24,671

99,572.31

4.03

1843

123,352.98

122,297.22

20,136

94,384.24

4.68

1844*

277,313.12

219,264.33

20,236

168,394.62

8.32

1845

94,648.19

144,690.90

22,476

. 119,038.62

5.29

1846

158,558.12

158,375.51

23,392

121,817.47

5.20

1847

125,276.14

135,023.15

23,834

120,530.37

5.05

1848

137.963,46

137,963.46

24,226

119,057.85

4.91

1849

194,196.20

192,306.32

24,524

136,164.81

5.55

1850

153,054.17

154,300.56

24,290

128,086.83

6.26

1851

179,113.21

179,756.70

25,941

130,216.36

. 5.02

1852

177,543.02

24,320

141,906.67

5.83

$3,509,755.15

$3,525,754.63

488,589

4.29

NOTE. There is an excess of expenditure over receipts of $15,900.48. The Treasurer's ao-
couiit for the first eight years could not be obtained complete.

* The financial year of the Board of Education commenced on the 1st of January that of
the Society on the 1st of May. To prevent the confusion consequent upon this difference the
time was altered to correspond with that of the Board, arid the statement for the year 1844 in-
cludes a period of twenty months. This gives the cost per scholar for twelve months $4.98, and
|8.32 for the whole period.

THE

PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIEJY.

CHAPTEE I.

ORIGIN OF THE SOCIETY, AND PROGRESS TO THE YEAR 1817.

Large Cities Public Instruction of the Poor City of New York in 1800 Parochial
Charity Schools An Unoccupied Field Proposition to Establish a New School
The First Meeting A Committee Appointed Memorial to the Legislature An
Act of Incorporation Passed The Society Organized The First Board of Trus-
tees Address to the Public Subscriptions The Lancasterian System The New
School Opened Lot of Ground Presented by Col. Rutgers Clothing for Poor
Children Memorial to the Legislature Application to the Common Council
The School Fund " The Free School Society " New Apartments for the School
Grant of Lots for a Building New School House No. 1 Donations Opening
of the School De Witt Clinton's Address The Law Amended School No. 2
Death of Benjamin D. Perkins A School Library Grant of Money by the Legis-
lature Land Presented by Trinity Church Opening of No. 2 Additional Trus-
tees Moral and Religious Instruction.

THE population of the city of New York, at the commence-
ment of the present century, was 60,489. The limits of the city
were marked on the north by the vicinity of Chambers street,
the population being located at the southern extremity of the
island. By that social gravitation which seems to have always
been inseparable from compacted communities, the metropolis
was not* exempt from the characteristic feature of a substratum
of wretched, ignorant, and friendless children, who, even though
they had parents, grew up in a condition of moral and religious
orphanage, alike fatal to their temporal and spiritual advance-
ment and elevation.

The influence of that spirit which is the outgrowth and the
evidence of true religious convictions, and a high sense of re-
sponsibility to the present as well as to the future, was not un-
felt in reference to this class of the population. Public econ-
omy, not less than religious duty the merely commercial con-
1

2} THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

siderations, not less than those that spring from the earnest be-
lief of revelation the social law of self-preservation, not less
than the higher law of duty taught some of the best arid most
honored men and women of that day the truth which half a cen-
tury has elaborated into a mighty demonstration, that the liter-
ary and moral instruction of every child in the State is a prime
necessity. If the parent fails in this work, then the State must
assume the task, and provide for its performance. The answer
given to the question as then discussed, originated the institu-
tion, a record of whose labors, for nearly fifty years, is deemed
worthy of preservation.

There were several schools known as " Charity Schools " in
existence at the time, but they were under denominational or
other control ; while a large class of children were practically
unsupplied with the means of instruction. An Association of
Ladies, members of the Society of Friends, organized for benev-'
olent purposes, had established a Free School for girls, in 1802,
which was in successful operation in its peculiar sphere. This
school suggested the establishment of other schools on the same
plan and for the same class of children ; and the names of the
founders and friends of both institutions show the connection
and origin of the Society which afterward became so efficient in
the instruction of the youth of New York. To extend the
benefits of education to all who were excluded from the various
schools already established, became an object of earnest desire
with several philanthropic men who had observed the condition
of these children. At the request of Thomas Eddy and John
Murray, whose attention had been particularly directed to the
subject, a meeting was called of such persons as were likely to
unite in the effort. On the 19th of February, 1805, this meet-
ing was held at the house of John Murray, in Peaul street.
Twelve persons were present, whose names are the following :
Samuel Osgood, Brockholst Livingston, John Murray, Jr., Sam-
uel Miller, Joseph Constant, Thomas Eddy, Thomas Pearsall,
Thomas Franklin, Matthew Clarkson, Leonard Bleecker, Samuel
Russell, and William Edgar. After a full discussion of the
object for which they had been called together, they were unani-
mous in the opinion that the establishment of schools, for the
education of children not provided for by the parochial schools,
was a measure of high importance, not only to them, but to the

MEMORIAL TO THE LEGISLATURE. 3

whole community, of wliich they formed so considerable a por-
tion. At this meeting a committee was appointed to devise
such plans as they might deem expedient, and report thereon at
a subsequent meeting.

"With a zeal and promptitude which were in harmony with
the noble objects proposed, the Committee gave their immediate
attention to the duty assigned them, and in a few days called a
second meeting, at which they submitted their report.

Among the recommendations of that report was one to the
effect that application be made to the Legislature of the State,
then in session, for an act of incorporation. A memorial was
accordingly prepared, which was signed by about one hundred
of the most respectable men in the city, and was forwarded to
the Legislature. It was as follows :

To the Representatives of the People of the State of New York, in Senate and

Assembly convened :
The Memorial of the Subscribers, Citizens of New York,

RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH,

That, impressed with a solicitude for the general welfare of the com-
munity, they feel it their duty to address your Body on a subject which
they regard as of deep concern.

Your memorialists have viewed with painful anxiety the multiplied evils
which have accrued, and are daily accruing, to this city, from the neglected
education of the children of the poor. They allude more particularly to
that description of children who do not belong to, or are not provided for,
by any religious society ; and who, therefore, do not partake of the advan-
tages arising from the different Charity Schools established by the various
religious societies in this city. The condition of this class is deplorable
indeed ; reared up by parents who, from a variety of concurring circum-
stances, are become either indifferent to the best interests of their offspring,
or, through intemperate lives, are rendered unable to defray the expense of
their instruction, these miserable and almost friendless objects are ushered
upon the stage of life, inheriting those vices which idleness and the bad
example of their parents naturally produce. The consequences of this neg-
lect of education are ignorance and vice, and all those manifold evils result-
ing from every species of immorality, by which public hospitals and alms-
houses are filled with objects of disease and poverty, and society burthened
with taxes for their support. In addition to these melancholy facts, it is to
be feared that the laboring class in the community is becoming less indus-
trious, less moral, and less careful to lay up the fruit of their earnings.
What can this alarming declension have arisen from, but the existence of an
error which has ever been found to produce a similar effect a want of a
virtuous education, especially at that early period of life when the impres-
sions that are made generally stamp the future character ?

4 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The rich having ample means of educating their offspring, it must be
apparent that the laboring poor a class of citizens so evidently useful
have a superior claim to public support.

The enlightened and excellent Government under which we live is favor-
able to the general diffusion of knowledge ; but the blessings of such a
Government can be expected to be enjoyed no longer than while its citizens
continue virtuous, and while the majority of the people, through the advan-
tage of a proper early education, possess sufficient knowledge to enable
them to understand and pursue their best interests. This sentiment, which
must meet with universal assent, was emphatically urged to his countrymen
by WASHINGTON, and has been recently enforced by our present Chief Ma-
gistrate in his address on the necessity of supporting schools, and promot-
ing useful knowledge through the State.

Trusting that the necessity of providing suitable means for the preven-
tion of the evils they have enumerated will be apparent to your honorable
Body, your memorialists respectfuly request the patronage and assistance of
the Legislature in establishing a free school, or schools, in this city, for the
benevolent purpose of affording education to those unfortunate children who
have no other mode of obtaining it.

The personal attention to be bestowed on these children for the improve-
ment of their morals, and to assist their parents in procuring situations for
them, where industry will be inculcated and good habits formed, as well as
to give them the learning requisite for the proper discharge of the duties of
life, it is confidently hoped will produce the most beneficial and lasting
effects.

The more effectually to accomplish so desirable an object, your memorial-'
ists have agreed to form an association under the name of " The Society for
Establishing a Free School, in the City of New York." They therefore re-
spectfully solicit the Legislature to sanction their undertaking by an Act of
Incorporation, and to grant them such pecuniary aid or endowment as, in
your wisdom, may be deemed proper for the promotion of the benevolent
object of your memorialists.

All which is respectfully submitted.

NW YOHK, 25* February, 1805.

The nature and importance of the enterprise proposed by the
petitioners were fully comprehended by the members of the
Legislature, who sympathized with its objects, and promptly re-
sponded to the appeal thus made to their wisdom and patriotism.
On the 9th of April following, an Act was passed, entitled, " An
Act to incorporate the Society instituted in the City of IS r ew
York, for the Establishment of a Free School for the Education
of Poor Children who do not belong to, or are not provided for
by, any religious society." The Act constituted De "Witt Clin-
ton, Samuel Osgood, Brockholst Livingston, John Murray, Jr.,

ACT OF INCORPORATION. 5

Jacob Morton, Samuel Miller, Joseph Constant, Thomas Eddy,
Thomas Pearsall, Robert Bowne, Matthew Clarkson, Archibald
Grade, John M'Vickar, Charles Wilkes, Henry Ten Brook, Gil-
bert Aspinwall, Valentine Seaman, William Johnson, William
Coit, Matthew Franklin, Adrian Hegernan, Benjamin G. Min-
turn, Leonard Bleecker, Thomas Franklin, Samuel Russell, Sam-
uel Doughty, Alexander Robertson, Samuel Forbes, John With-
ington, William Edgar, George Trumbnll, Daniel D. Tompkins,
William Boyd, Jacob Mott, Benjamin Egbert, Thomas Farmar,
and Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, a body corporate under the style of
" The Society for establishing a Free School in the City of New
York, for the education of such poor children as do not belong
to, or are not provided for ', by any religious society"

The provisions of this Act were, that the yearly income of
the Society should not exceed ten thousand dollars, and that on
the first Monday in May in each year there should be elected
thirteen Trustees to manage the affairs of the Society, who
should be members of the said corporation, and actually residing
in the city of New York ; that the Trustees should meet regu-
larly on the second Monday in every month, arid that seven or
more of them so convened should be a legal meeting of the
Board : That any person who should contribute to the Society
the sum of eight dollars, should be a member thereof; and that
any person who should contribute the sum of twenty-five dollars,
should be a member, and be further entitled, during the life of
such contributor, to send one child to be educated at any school
under the care of the Society ; and whoever should contribute
the sum of forty dollars, should be a member, and be entitled to
send two children to be educated at any school under the direc-
tion of the said Society. The second section of the Act consti-
tuted the twe]ve gentlemen present at the original meeting, to-
getljer with Do Witt Clinton, the first Board of Trustees, who
should hold office until the time fixed by the Act for the first
election of officers.

The limitation of the income of the Society to the sum often
thousand dollars is an indication of the rigid views of responsi-
bility, as well as of economy, which controlled the founders and
early patrons of the Society. Experience and philanthropy soon
taught a more enlarged view of the necessities of the enterprise.

In conformity with the provisions of this Act, thirteen Trus-

6 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tees were elected at a meeting held on the 6tli of May, 1805, and
the Board thus elected was organized as follows :

' DE WITT CLINTON, President.

JOHN MURRAY, Jr., Vice-President.

LEONARD BLEECKER, Treasurer.

BENJAMIN D. PERKINS, Secretary.
Gilbert Aspinwall, Adrian Hegeinan,

Thomas Eddy, William Johnson,

Thomas Franklin, Samuel Miller,

Matthew Franklin, Benjamin G. Minturn,

Henry Ten Brook.
/

The Society had now assumed a responsible form, and the
Trustees soon began to realize the magnitude of the enterprise
which they had undertaken. With a labor of the utmost im-
portance before them, a wide field and an organization perfect-
ed, they were now to provide means for carrying on their work.
A building was required for the school, and funds were needed
to pay the salary of the teachers and the other expenses incident
to such an institution. Sensible of the necessity of the under-
taking, and anxious that the friendless children whose welfare
they had in view should begin to participate in the benefits de-
signed to be bestowed upon them, the Trustees determined to
make an immediate application to their fellow-citizens for pe-
cuniary assistance. The following address was therefore pub-
lished in the journals of the city :

TO THE PUBLIC.

Address of the Trustees of the " Society for Establishing a Free School in the
City of New Yorlc, for the Education of such, Poor Children as do not
Belong to, or are not Provided for ly, any Religious Society."

" "While the various religious and benevolent societies in this city, with a
spirit of charity and zeal which the precepts and example of the Divine
Author of our religion could alone inspire, amply provide for the education
of such poor children as belong to their respective associations, there still re-
mains a large number living in total neglect of religious and moral instruc-
tion, and unacquainted with the common rudiments of learning, essentially
requisite for the due management of the ordinary business of life. This
neglect may be imputed either to the extreme indigence of the parents of
such children, their intemperance and vice ; or to a blind indifference to the
best interests of their offspring. The consequences must be obvious to the

ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC. 7

most careless observer. Children thus brought up in ignorance, and amidst
the contagion of bad example, are in imminent danger of ruin ; and too
many of them, it is to be feared, instead of being useful members of the
community, will become the burden and pests of society. Early instruction
and fixed habits of industry, decency, and order, are the surest safeguards
of virtuous conduct ; and when parents are either unable or unwilling to
bestow the necessary attention on the education of their children, it be-
comes the duty of the public, and of individuals, who have the power, to
assist them in the discharge of this important obligation. It is in vain that
laws are made for the punishment of crimes, or that good men attempt to
stem the torrent of irreligion and vice, if the evil is not checked at its
source ; and the means of prevention, by the salutary discipline of early
education, seasonably applied. It is certainly in the power of the opulent
and charitable, by a timely and judicious interposition of their influence and
aid, if not wholly to prevent, at least to diminish, the pernicious effects re-
sulting from the neglected education of the children of the poor.

Influenced by these considerations, and from a sense of the necessity of
providing some remedy for an increasing and alarming evil, several individ-
uals, actuated bjt similar motives, agree to form an association for the pur-
pose of extending the means of education to such poor children as do not
belong to, or are not provided for, by any religious society. After different
meetings, numerously attended, a plan of association was framed, and a
Memorial prepared and addressed to the Legislature, soliciting an Act of
Incorporation, the better to enable them to carry into effect their benevolent
design. Such a law the Legislature, at their last session, was pleased to
pass ; and at a meeting of the Society, under the Act of Incorporation, on
the sixth instant, thirteen Trustees were elected for the ensuing year.

The particular plan of the school, and the rules for its discipline and
management, will be made known previous to its commencement. Care
will be exercised in the selection of teachers, and, besides the elements of
learning usually taught in schools, strict attention will be bestowed on the
morals of the children, and all suitable means be used to counteract the dis-
advantages resulting from the situation of their parents. It is proposed,
also, to establish, on the first day of the week, a school, called a Sunday
School, more particularly for such children as, from peculiar circumstances,
are unable to attend on the other days of the week. In this, as in the Com-
mon School, it will be a primary object, without observing the peculiar
forms of any religious Society, to inculcate the sublime truths of religion
and morality contained in the Holy Scriptures.

This Society, as will appear from its name, interferes with no existing
institution, since children already provided with the means of education, or
attached to any other Society, will not come under its care. Humble glean-
ers in the wide field of benevolence, the members of this Association seek
such objects only as are left by those who have gone before, or are fellow-
laborers with them in the great work of charity. They, therefore, look
with confidence for the encouragement and support of the affluent and
charitable of every denomination of Christians; and when they consider

8 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

that in no community is to be found a greater spirit of liberal and active
benevolence than among the citizens of New York, they feel assured that
adequate means for the prosecution of their plan will be easily obtained.
In addition to the respectable list of original subscriptions, considerable
funds will be requisite for the purchase or hire of a piece of ground, and
the erection of a suitable building for the school, to pay the teachers, and
to defray other charges incident to the establishment. To accomplish this
design, and to place the Institution on a solid and respectable foundation,
the Society depend on the voluntary bounty of those who may be charita-
bly disposed to contribute their aid in the promotion of an object of great
and universal concern.

DE WITT CLINTON, President.
JOHN MURRAY, Jr., Vice-President.
LEONARD BLEECKER, Treasurer.
B. D. PERKINS, Secretary.

Gilbert Aspinwall, Adrian Hegeman,

Thomas Eddy, "William Johnson,

Thomas Franklin, Samuel Miller, D. D.,

Matthew Franklin, Benjamin G. x Minturn,

Henry Ten Brook.

NEW YORK, May (bth Month) 18, 1805.

After the appearance of this address, the labor of soliciting
subscriptions was commenced, but, in consequence of adverse
circumstances, among which was the occurrence of the yellow
fever during the summer and autumn months, the progress made
was slow ; and it was not until after numerous meetings, and
great efforts on the part of the Trustees, during the ensuing
twelve months, that the subscriptions amounted to a sum suffi-
cient to warrant them in hiring a teacher and opening the school.

The subscription list, still preserved among the papers of the
Society, bears at its head the honored name of DE WITT CLIN-
TON, opposite to which is a donation of $200, followed by that
of W. EDGAB, for $50, and MATTHEW CLARKSON, for $25, to-
gether with many of the most prominent and influential men of
the time.

The enterprise, thus originated and endowed, had reached,
at the end of the year 1805, a position which led the Trustees to
mature their plans for the opening of the school at as early a
day as practicable-. They had entered upon a work in which the
adaptation of small means to produce the greatest result was a
question of much importance. Diligent inquiry was accordingly
made as to the best methods of instruction, and the systems

A SCHOOL ESTABLISHED.

adopted in other cities and countries in educating the same class-
es of children. Efficiency in operation, facility and simplicity,
attractiveness and thoroughness, combined with economy, were
eminently desirable, and care was taken to examine the merits
of the various known systems of instruction. Among those
which presented themselves prominently to the attention of the
trustee?, was that which had been for a few years successfully
established in London by JOSEPH LANCASTER, and known as the
LAKCASTEEIAN SYSTEM. This gentleman was then conducting his
school in the British metropolis, with an average attendance of
about one thousand pupils, and his extraordinary success and
reputation as an instructor, together with the noticeable reform
which had been effected in the moral and social condition of that
class in the vicinity of his school, were such that the attention
of the British public had not only been drawn toward the estab-
lishment, but it had received the notice of members on the floor
of Parliament. The fame of the indefatigable founder had,
moreover, become known in all parts of the world.

A system of instruction which had been so honorably en-
dorsed and supported, could not fail to command the considera-
tion of the trustee's. Economy in expense, and facility in com-
municating instruction, were the characteristic features of this
system. It comprehended reading, writing, and arithmetic.
The pupils them selves 'were made the instruments of their own
instruction. A school was divided into classes of ten or fifteen
scholars, who were placed under the care of a monitor, while he
was himself a scholar in a class of a superior grade.

The managers of the Society, after a carefal consideration of
the system devised by LANCASTER, with its apparatus and illus-
trations, did not long hesitate in regard to the propriety of an
experimental test in their new school. In its introduction they
derived "essential aid from one of their own number, Benjamin
D. Perkins, who had seen it in full operation in England, and
who was acquainted with its regulations from a personal com-
munication with its author. A teacher who appeared to be well
qualified for the undertaking, William Smith, and who was em-
ployed by the Society for several years, was selected ; and under
his superintendence a school was opened on the 19th of May,
1SOG, in a small apartment in Bancker (now Madison) street.
In a few days the attendance rose to forty-two, and the whole,

10 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

together with those who were afterward added to the school,
were under the direction of one teacher, the " monitors " render-
ing all the assistance in their power.

The Lancasterian system of instruction was, by the organiza-
tion of this school, transplanted to the Western world, and for
many years was almost universally adopted in large schools of
even the higher classes of pay schools. The New York High
School, which for a number of years held the first rank, under
Daniel H. Barnes, Shepherd Johnson, John Griscom, and others,
was conducted on the Lancasterian, or monitorial, system.

One clause in the act of incorporation, which regulated the
meetings of the trustees, being productive of inconvenience, an
act was passed by the Legislature on the 2d of April, 1806, pro-
viding that the trustees might hold their monthly meetings on
any day of the week they might deem convenient. It was there-
fore immediately resolved, that their regular meetings should in
future be held on the first Friday in every month.

In the same month, Col. Henry Kutgers, with characteristic
liberality, presented to the Society a lot of ground in Henry
street, for the purpose of erecting thereon a school-house, to
meet the wants of the indigent in that populous part of the city.
He afterward added an adjoining lot to this generous donation ;
the estimated value of the whole being $2,500.

The labors of the instructor are either very much embar-
rassed or aided by the social condition of the pupils. The
struggle for bread, and the physical necessities of children who
suffer from cold, hunger, and wretchedness, are not only, from
the very nature of the case, impediments to progress in educa-
tion, but they serve to blunt the sensibilities, and make intellec-
tual effort a toilsome and unwelcome task. Hunger and cold
make their appeals very bitterly oftentimes, and efforts for self-
preservation, or struggles against suffering, absorb the .thoughts
and energies, and become the chief care of beings thus situated.
The moral, the intellectual, and the spiritual wants are far less
keenly felt, or even perceived ; and the condition of dependence
thus imposed upon thousands becomes a bequest in perpetuity,
from which few rise to a higher level except by accident, or a
native force of character which overcomes all obstacles by a
resolute purpose to triumph. It was among this class that the
Society laid its foundation ; and the trustees found, at the ap-

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES. 11

proacli of the winter of 1806-7, that their labor of benevolence
would fail very materially were they to neglect some of those
humane offices which poverty demands at the hand of the philan-
thropist and the Christian. They therefore determined to ex-
amine into tl^e personal wants of their beneficiaries, and they
were not long in becoming convinced that clothing of every de-
scription would be required for their use. Efforts were accord-
ingly made to supply these wants, and the trustees were gratified
by the receipt of liberal donations of clothing, shoes, and hats,
which, being distributed among the children, were sufficient to
make them all comfortable for the winter. This continued to be
the case for some years, but was finally abandoned when the
schools increased in number and were more numerously attended.
In January, 1807, the trustees, not only encouraged with
their success, but anxious to extend their labors, presented a
memorial to the Legislature, containing a statement of what
they had done, and soliciting pecuniary assistance to enable them
to extend the operations of the association. The memorial met
with a very favorable reception, and soon afterward the trus-
tees were able to congratulate the friends of the institution on
the passage of an act appropriating four thousand dollars
toward building a house, and one thousand to be paid annually
toward defraying the expenses of the school. These moneys
were paid out of the moneys appropriated by the act entitled
" An Act to lay a duty on strong liquors, and for regulating inns
and taverns," to the payment of the contingent charges of the
city of New York, the annuity to continue during the pleasure
of the Legislature. The act was passed on the 27th of Febru-
ary, 1807, and was deemed of higher interest from the fact that
this liberal appropriation received the unanimous consent of both
branches of the Legislature.

While these proceedings were transpiring at the Capitol, the
trustees made an application to the Corporation of the city for
their assistance in promoting an enterprise which promised to be
of incalculable benefit to the public. A committee from that
body was accordingly appointed, who visited the institution, and
soon afterward a building adjacent to the Almshouse was appro-
priated for the temporary accommodation of the school, with an
additional appropriation of five hundred dollars to assist in put-
ting it into a suitable condition for school purposes. As a con-

12 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

sideration for these advantages, the Society agreed, on their part,
to receive and educate fifty children belonging to the Almshouse.
To tliis building the school was removed on the 28th of April,
1807, and before the close of the year it numbered one hundred
and fifty pupils.

lu the year 1808, the trustees had the pleasure of witnessing
the growing utility of the institution, and the' union of public
and private exertions in their favor. The charter of the Society
was deemed not to be sufficiently comprehensive, as it did not
embrace all classes of poor children ; and, desirous that the
benefits of the establishment should not be restricted, they so-
licited and obtained from the Legislature an act, which was
passed on the 1st of April, 1808, ordaining that the corpora-
tion should in future be denominated " The Free School So-
ciety of New York," and that its powers should extend to all
children who should be the proper objects of a gratuitous educa-
tion.

In order to provide effectually for the future wants of the
school, on an enlarged plan, the trustees petitioned the Legisla-
ture, at the same session, for a liberal portion of the school fund
of the State, whenever it should be deemed advisable to make a
distribution. The preamble to the bill, by which the name of
the Society was changed, recites, that, " Whereas, the trustees
of the Society for establishing a free school in the city of New
York, for the education of such poor children as do not belong
to, or are not provided for 'by, any religious society, have, by
their petition, represented to the Legislature, that the act incor-
porating that Society restrains them unnecessarily in the com-
munication of the advantages of their establishment, by confin-
ing them to a certain description of poor children ; and have also
petitioned for a competent portion of the school fund applicable
to the city -of New York, in order to be the better enabled *o
proceed in the execution of their important duties; and, where-
as, the said fund does not as yet amount to a sum sufficiently
large to render an immediate distribution advisable, but as the
Legislature are desirous of encouraging an institution so laud-
able and useful, by granting the petition of the said trustees in
other respects," it was enacted that the name of the Society be
changed to that of the " FREE-SCHOOL SOCIETY." This measure,
although unaccompanied with any provision of moneys, was

A SCHOOL-BUILDING. 13

valuable in extending the sphere of the institution and increas-
ing its claims upon the liberality of the public.

The tenement adjacent to the Almshouse in which the school
was kept, could not accommodate more than two hundred and
fifty children. This number was soon reached, and numerous
demands for admission continued to be made far beyond the
capacity of the house. The Almshouse was a long building
of two stories in height, with a basement, and occupied the
north end of the Park, parallel with Chambers street, extending
from Broadway nearly to the line of what is now Centre street.

The demand for more ample accommodation pressed urgently
upon the trustees, an4 as the most direct and certain source of
aid, a further application for assistance was made to the Corpo-
ration in the autumn of 1808, and that body presented to the
Society an extensive lot of ground in Chatham street, on which
stood the State arsenal. This donation was made on condition
that the Society should receive and educate gratuitously the chil-
dren of the Almshouse, in the performance of which task it was
eminently fulfilling both the letter and spirit of the design of
its founders and friends. The value of the ground and the build-
ing upon it was estimated at ten thousand dollars. To this im-
portant donation the Corporation afterward added the sum of
fifteen hundred dollars, to aid in preparing a new building for
the reception of the school.

These handsome appropriations enabled the trustees to prose-
cute their work with a more hopeful confidence than they had
yet entertained, and during the year 1809 they were principally
occupied in the completion of the new building. A brick edifice
was erected, one hundred and twenty feet in length and fifty feet
in width, capable of accommodating in one room five hundred
children. In the lower story there were apartments for the fam-
ily of the teacher, for the meeting of the trustees, and for an-
other school, which would accommodate one hundred and fifty
pupils. In the adoption of their plan, the trustees had economy
constantly in view ; but, at the same time, they were desirous
that the style of architecture, and the external appearance of the
building, should comport with the liberal patronage which the
institution had received, and with the resources of a great and
flourishing metropolis. Among the means of lessening the ex-
penses of the establishment, they solicited and obtained, from

14: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

4
several benevolent individuals, contributions of timber and other

materials to the amount of one thousand dollars. They also ne-
gotiated with a master-mason and two master-carpenters, who
generously superintended the work, and paid the laborers, with-
out any pecuniary advantage to themselves. In the erection
anfl completion of this extensive building, the Society expended
more than thirteen thousand dollars.

The gentlemen to whose benevolence the Society was indebt-
ed for their contributions of building materials, and the superin-
tendence of the construction of the edifice, are worthy of an
honorable place among the early friends of the enterprise, and
are as follows :

Abraham Kussell, Isaac Sharpies, -

William Tilton, Jones & Clinch,

J. G. Pierson & Brothers, George Youle,

Whitehead Hicks, John Youle,

M. M. Titus, Forman Cheesman,

Bichard Titus, John Rooke,

Joseph Watkins, George Lindsay,

B. "W. Rogers & Co., Jonathan Dixon,

Richard Speaight, J. Sherred,

Abraham Bussing, Alexander Campbell,

Daniel Beach, Wm. & G. Post,

P. Schermerhorn, Jr., Joel Davis,

Thomas Stevenson, Henry Hillman,

Thomas Smyth, Ebenezer Basset,

John McKie, Peter Fenton,

Wm. Wickham, Wm. McKenny.

Liberal donations were also received from the public, amounting
to about ten thousand dollars.

The building being completed, it was opened for school pur-
poses, and dedicated by public exercises of an interesting charac-
ter, on the llth of December, 1809. The president, DE WITT
CLINTON, delivered the following address :

DE WITT CLINTON'S ADDRESS.

On an occasion so interesting to this institution, when it is about to
assume a more reputable shape, and to acquire a spacious and permanent
habitation, it is no more than a becoming mark of attention to its patrons,

ADDRESS BY DE WITT CLINTON. 15

benefactors, and friends, assembled for the first time in this place, to deline-
ate its origin, its progress, and its present situation. The station which I
occupy in this association, and the request of my much-respected colleagues,
have devolved this task upon me a task which I should perform with un-
mingled pleasure, if my avocations had afforded me time to execute it with
fidelity ; and I trust that the humble objects of your bounty, presented this
day to your view, will not detract from the solemnity of the occasion
" that ambition will not mock our useful toil, nor grandeur hear with a dis-
dainful smile the simple annals of the poor."

In casting a view over the civilized world, we find an universal accord-
ance in opinion on the benefits of education, but the practical exposition of
this opinion exhibits a deplorable contrast. While magnificent colleges and
universities are erected and endowed and dedicated to literature, we be-
hold few liberal appropriations for diffusing the blessings of knowledge
among all descriptions of people. The fundamental error of Europe has
been, to confine the light of knowledge to the wealthy and the great, while
the humble and the depressed have been as sedulously excluded from its
participation, as the wretched criminal, immured in a dungeon, is from the
light of heaven. This cardinal mistake is not only to be found in the insti-
tutions of the Old World, and in the condition of its inhabitants, but it is
to be seen in most of the books which have been written on the subject of
education. The celebrated Locke, whose treatises on government and the
human understanding have crowned him with immortal glory, devoted the
powers of his mighty intellect to the elucidation of education ; but in the
very threshold of his book we discover this radical error : his treatise is
professedly intended for the children of gentlemen. " If those of that rank
(says he) are, by their education, once set right, they will quickly bring all
tlie rest in order ; " and he appears to consider the education of other chil-
dren as of little importance. The consequence of this monstrous heresy has
been, that ignorance, the prolific parent of every crime and vice, has pre 1 -
dominated over the great body of the people, and a correspondent moral
debasement has prevailed. " Man differs more from man than man from
beast," says a writer,* once celebrated. This remark, however generally
false, will certainly apply with great force to a man in a state of high men-
tal cultivation, and man in a state of extreme ignorance.

This view of human nature is indeed calculated to excite the most pain-
ful feelings, and it entirely originates from a consideration of the predomi-
nating error which I have expressed. To this source must the crimes and
the calamities of the Old World be principally imputed. Ignorance is the
cause as well as the effect of bad governments, and without the cultivation
of our rational powers, we can entertain no just ideas of the obligations of
morality or the excellences of religion. Although England is justly re-
nowned for its cultivation of the arts and sciences, and although the poor-
rates of that country exceed five millions sterling per annum, yet (I adopt
the words of an eminent British writer) " there is no Protestant country

* Montaigne's Essays.

16 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

where the education of the poor has been so grossly and infamously neglect-
ed as in England." * If one tenth part of that sum had been applied to the
education of the poor, the blessings of order, knowledge, and innocence
would have been diffused among them, the evil would have been attacked
at the fountain-head, and a total revolution would have taken place in the
habits and lives of the people, favorable to the cause of industry, good
morals, good order, and rational religion.

More just and rational views have been entertained on this subject in the
United States. Here, no privileged orders, no factitious distinctions in
society, no hereditary nobility, no established religion, no royal preroga-
tives, exist to interpose barriers between the people, and to create distinct
classifications in society. All men being considered as enjoying an equality
of rights, the propriety and necessity of dispensing, without distinction, the
blessings of education, followed of course. In New England, the greatest
attention has been invariably given to this important object. In Connecti-
cut, particularly, the schools are supported, at least three fourths of the
year, by the interest of a very large fund created for that purpose, and a
small tax on the people ; the whole amounting to seventy-eight thousand
dollars per annum. The result of this beneficial arrangement is obvious and
striking. Our Eastern brethren are a well-informed and moral people. In
those States it is as uncommon, to find a poor man who cannot read and
write, as it is rare to see one in Europe who can.

Pennsylvania has followed the noble example of New England. On the
4th of April last, a law was passed in that State, entitled " An Act to provide
for the education of the poor, gratis." The expense of educating them is
made a county charge, and the county commissioners are directed to carry
the law into execution.

New York has proceeded in the same course, but on a different, and, peY-
haps, more eligible plan. For a few years back a fund has been accumulat-
ing with great celerity, solemnly appropriated to the support of Common
Schools. This fund consists, at present, of nearly four hundred thou-
sand dollars in bank-stock, mortgages, and bonds, and produces an annual
interest of upwards of twenty-four thousand dollars. The capital will be
augmented by the accumulating interest, and the sale of three hundred and
thirty-six thousand acres of land. When the interest on the whole amounts
to fifty thousand dollars, it will be in a state of distribution. It is highly
probable that the whole fund will, in a few years, amount to twelve hun-
dred and fifty thousand dollars, yielding a yearly income of seventy-five
thousand dollars. If population is taken as the ratio of distribution, the
quota of this city will amount to seven thousand five hundred dollars a
sum amply sufficient on the plan of our establishment, if judiciously applied,
to accommodate all our poor with a gratuitous education.

On a comparison of the plan of this State with that of Pennsylvania, it
will probably be found that we are entitled to the palm of superior excel-
lence. Our capital is already created, and nothing more is requisite than a

* Edinburgh Review.

ADDRESS BY DE WITT CLTNTOX. 17

judicious distribution ; whereas the expense of school establishments in
that State is to be satisfied by annual burdens. The people of Pennsylvania
are therefore interested against a faithful execution of the plan, because the
less that is applied to education, the less they will have to pay in taxation.
Abuses and perversions will of course arise aad multiply in the administra-
tion of the public bounty. And the laws of that State being liable to alter-
ation or repeal, her system has not that permanency and stability to which
ours can lay claim. It is true that our Legislature may divert this fund ;
but it would justly be considered a violation of public faith, and a measure
of a very violent character. As long as the public sentiment is correct in
this respect, we have no reason to apprehend that any Legislature will be
hardy enough to encounter" the odium of their constituents and the indig-
nation of posterity. And we have every reason to believe that this great
fund, established for sinking vice and ignorance, will never be diverted or
destroyed, but that it will remain unimpaired and in full force and vigor to
the latest posterity, as an illustrious establishment, erected by the benevo-
lence of the State, for the propagation of knowledge and the diffusion of
virtue among the people.

A number of benevolent persons had seen, with concern, the increasing
vices of the city, arising, in a great degree, from the neglected education of
the poor. Great cities are, at all times, the nurseries and hot-beds of crimes.
Bad men from all quarters repair to them, in order to obtain the benefit of
concealment, and to enjoy in a superior degree the advantages of rapine and
fraud. And the dreadful examples of vice which are presented to youth,
and the alluring forms in which it is arrayed, connected with a spirit of ex-
travagance and luxury, the never-failing attendant of great wealth and ex-
tensive business, cannot fail of augmenting the masS of moral depravity.
" In London," says a distinguished writer on its police, " aboVe twenty thou-
sand individuals rise every morning without knowing how, or by. what
means, they are to be supported through the passing day, and, in many
instances, even where they are to lodge on the ensuing night." * There can
be no doubt that hundreds are in the same situation in this city, prowling
about our streets for prey, the victims of intemperance, the slaves of idle-
ness, and ready to fall into any vice, rather than to cultivate industry and
good order. How can it be expected that persons so careless of themselves,
will pay any attention to their children ? The mendicant parent bequeaths
his squalid poverty to his offspring, and the hardened thief transmits a lega-
cy of infamy to his unfortunate and depraved descendants. Instances have
occurred of little children, arraigned at the bar of our criminal courts, who
have been derelict and abandoned, without a hand to protect, or a voice to
guide them, through life. "When interrogated as to their connections, they
have replied that they were without home and without friends. In this
state of turpitude and idleness, leading lives of roving mendicancy and
petty depredation, they existed, a burden and a disgrace to the community.

True it is that charity schools, entitled to eminent praise, were estab-

* Colquhoun on Police of London.

18 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

lished in this city ; but they were attached to particular sects, and did not
embrace children of different persuasions. Add to this that some denomi-
nations were not provided with these establishments, and that children the
most in want of instruction were necessarily excluded, by the irreligion of
their parents, from the benefit of education.

After a full view of .the case, those persons of whom I have spoken
agreed that the evil must be corrected at its source, and that education was
the sovereign prescription. Under this impression they petitioned the Legis-
lature, who, agreeably to their application, passed a law, on the 9th of April,
1805, entitled " Au Act to incorporate the Society instituted in the city of
New York, for the establishment of a free school for the education of poor
children who do not belong to, or are not provided for by, any religious
society." Thirteen trustees were elected under this act, on the first Mon-
day of the ensuing May, with power to manage the affairs of the corpora-
tion. On convening together, they found that they had undertaken a great
task and encountered an important responsibility ; without funds, without
teachers, without a house in which to instruct, and without a system of
instruction ; and that their only reliance must be on their own industry, on
the liberality of the public, on the bounty of the constituted authorities,
and the smiles of the Almighty Dispenser of all good.

In the year 1798, an obscure man of the name of Joseph Lancaster, pos-
sessed of an original genius and a most sagacious mind, and animated by a
sublime benevolence, devoted himself to the education of the poor of Great
Britain. Wherever he turned his eyes he saw the deplorable state to which
they were reduced by the prevalence of ignorance and vice. He first plant-
ed his standard of charity in the city of London, where it was calculated
that, forty thousand children were left as destitute of instruction as the sav-
ages of the desert. And he proceeded, by degrees, to form and perfect a
systeni which is, in education, what the neat finished machines for abridg-
ing labor and expense are in the mechanic arts.

It comprehends reading, writing, arithmetic, and the knowledge of the
Holy Scriptures. It arrives at its object with the least possible trouble and
at the least possible expense. Its distinguishing characters are economy,
facility, and expedition, and its peculiar improvements are cheapness, activ-
ity, order, and emulation. It is impossible on this occasion to give a de-
tailed view of the system. For this I refer you to a publication entitled
" Improvements in Education, &c., by Joseph Lancaster ; " and for its prac-
tical exposition I beg you to look at the operations of this seminary. Read-
ing, in all its processes, from the alphabet upwards, is taught at the same
time with writing, commencing with sand, proceeding to the slate, and from
thence to the copy-book. And, to borrow a most just and striking remark,
" the beauty of the system is, that nothing is trusted to the boy himself; he
does not only repeat the lesson before a superior, but he learns before a supe-
rior." * Solitary study does not exist in the establishment. The children
.are taught in companies. Constant habits of attention and vigilance are

* Edinburgh Review.

ADDRESS BY DE WITT CLINTON. 19

formed, and an ardent spirit of emulation kept continually alive. Instruc-
tion is performed through the instrumentality of the scholars. The school
is divided into classes of ten, and a chief, denominated a monitor, is ap-
pointed over each class, who exercises a didactic and super-visional author-
ity. The discipline of the school is enforced by shame, rather than by the
infliction of pain. The punishments are varied with circumstances ; and a
judicious distribution of rewards, calculated to engage the infant mind in
the discharge of its duty, forms the key-stone which binds together the
whole edifice."

Upon this system Lancaster superintended in person a school of one
thousand scholars, at an annual expense of three hundred pounds sterling.
In 1806, he proposed, by establishing twenty or thirty schools in different
parts of the kingdom, to educate ten thousand poor children, at four shil-
lings per. annum each. This proposition has been carried into effect, and he
has succeeded in establishing twenty schools in different parts of the king-
dom, all of which are under the care of teachers educated by him, few of
whom are more than eighteen years old. Several of the schools have each
about 300 scholars; that at Manchester has 400. His great school in
Borough Road, London, flourishes Very much ; it has sometimes 1,100 chil-
dren seldom less than 1,000.

When I perceive that many boys in' our school have been taught to read
and write in two months, who did not before know the alphabet, and that
even one has accomplished it in three weeks when I view all the bearings
and tendencies of this system when I contemplate the habits of order
which it forms, the spirit of emulation which it excites, the rapid improve-
ment which it produces, the purity of morals which it inculcates when I
behold the extraordinary union of celerity in instruction and economy of
expense rand when I perceive one great assembly of a thousand children,
under the eye of a single teacher, marching, with unexampled rapidity and
with perfect discipline, to the goal of knowledge, I confess that I recognize
in Lancaster the benefactor of the human race. I consider his system as
creating a new era in education, as a blessing sent down from heaven to re-
deem the poor and distressed of this world from the power and dominion
of ignorance. .;

Although the merits of this apostle of benevolence have been generally
acknowledged in his own country, and he has received the countenance and
protection of the first men of Great Britain, yet calumny has lifted up her
voice against him, and attempts have been made to rob him of his laurels.
Danger to the Established Church and to Government has been apprehended
from his endeavors to pour light upon mankind. This insinuation has been
abundantly repelled by the tenor of his life his carefully steering clear, in
his instructions, of any peculiar creed, and his confining himself to the gen-
eral truths of Christianity. "I have," says Lancaster, "been eight years
engaged in the benevolent work of superintending the education of the
poor. I have had three thousand children, who owe their education to me,
some of whom have left school, are apprenticed or in place, and are going
on well. I have had great influence with both parents and children, among

20 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

whom there is, nevertheless, no one instance of a convert to my religious
profession." That knowledge is the parent of sedition and insurrection,
and that, in proportion as the public mind is illuminated, the principles of
anarchy are disseminated, is a proposition that can never admit of debate,
at least in this country.

But Lancaster has also been accused of arrogating to himself surrep-
titious honors, and attempts have been made to transfer the entire merit of
his great discovery to Dr. Bell. Whatever he borrowed from that gentle-
man he has candidly 1 acknowledged. The use of sand, in teaching, un-
doubtedly came to him through that channel ; but it has been practised for
ages by the Brahmins. He may also be indebted to Bell for some other
improvements, but the vital leading principles of his system are emphatically
an original discovery.

The trustees of this institution, after due deliberation, did not hesitate
to adopt the system of Lancaster ; and, in carrying it into effect, they de-
rived essential aid from one of their body .who had seen it practised in Eng-
land, and who had had personal communication with its author. A teacher
was also selected who has fully answered every reasonable expectation. He
has generally followed the prescribed plan. "Wherever he has deviated, he
has improved. A more numerous, a better governed school, affording equal
facilities to improvement, is not to be found in the United States.

Provided thus with an excellent system and an able teacher, the school
was opened on the 6th of May, 1806, in a small apartment in Bancker street.
This was the first scion of the Lancaster stock in the United States ; and
from this humble beginning, in the course of little more than three years,
you all observe the rapidity with which we have ascended.

One great desideratum still remained to be supplied. Without sufficient
funds, nothing could be efficiently done. Animated appeals were made to
the bounty of our citizens, and five thousand six hundred and forty-eight
dollars were collected by subscription. Application was also made to the
Legislature of this State for assistance, and on the 27th of February, 1807,
a law was passed appropriating four thousand dollars, " for the purpose of
erecting a suitable building, or buildings, for the instruction of poor chil-
dren ; and every year thereafter, the sum of one thousand dollars, for the
purpose of promoting the benevolent objects of the Society." The pream-
ble of this liberal act contains a legislative declaration of the excellence of
the Lancaster system, in the following words : " Whereas, the Trustees of
the Society for establishing a Free School in the City of New York for the
education of such poor children as do not belong to, or are not provided
for by, any religious society, have, by their memorial, solicited the aid of
the Legislature ; and whereas their plan of extending the benefits of educa-
tion to poor children, and the excellent mode of instruction adopted by
them, are highly deserving of the encouragement of Government."

Application was also made to the Corporation^ the city for assistance ;
and the tenement in Bancker street being in all respects inadequate to the
accommodation of the increasing establishment, that body appropriated a
building adjacent to the Almshouse, for the temporary accommodation of

ADDRESS BY DE WITT CLINTON. 21

the school, and the sum of five hundred dollars towards putting it in repair ;
the Society agreeing to receive and educate fifty children from the Alms-
house. To this place the school was removed on the 1st of May, 1807,
where it has continued until to-day.

The Corporation also presented the ground of this edifice, on which was
an arsenal, to the Society, on condition of their educating the children of
the Almshouse gratuitously ; and also the sum of fifteen hundred dollars to
aid in the completion of this building. The value of this lot and the old
building, may be fairly estimated at ten thousand dollars ; and the Society
hav.e expended above thirteen thousand dollars in the erection and comple-
tion of this edifice and the adjacent buildings. The income of the school
during the last year has been about sixteen hundred dollars, and its expense
did not differ much from that sum. This room will contain nearly six hun-
dred scholars, and below there are apartments for the family of the teacher,
for.the meeting of the trustees, and for a female school, which may contain
one hundred scholars, and may be considered as an useful adjunct to this
institution. This seminary was established about twelve years ago by a
number of young women belonging to, or professing with, the Society of
Friends, who have, with meritorious zeal and exemplary industry, devoted
much of their personal attention, and all their influence, to the education of
poor girls in the elementary parts of education and needle-work. The sig-
nal success which attended this Free School animated the trustees with a
desire to extend its usefulness, and to render it coextensive with the wants
of the community and commensurate with the objects of public bounty.
A statute was accordingly passed, on their application, on the 1st of April,
1808, altering the style of this corporation, denominating it " The Free-
School Society of New York," and extending its powers to all children who
are the objects of a gratuitous education.

From this elevation of prosperity and this position of philanthropy, the
Society had the satisfaction of seeing that the wise and the good of this and
the neighboring States had turned their attention to this establishment. A
number of ladies of this city, distinguished for their consideration in soci-
ety, and honored and respected for their undeviating cultivation of the
charities of life, established a society for the very humane, charitable, and
laudable purposes of protecting, relieving, and instructing orphan children.
This institution was incorporated on the 7th of April, 1807, under the style
of " The Orphan Asylum Society in the City of New York ; " and at a sub-
sequent period the Legislature, under a full conviction of its great merits
and claims to public patronage, made a disposition in its favor, which will,
in process of time, produce five thousand dollars.

A large building, fifty feet square and three stories high, has been erect-
ed for its accommodation, in the suburbs of the city, and it now contains
seventy children, who are supported by the zeal and benevolence of its wor-
thy members, and educated on the plan of this institution, at an annual ex-
pense of two thousand dollars.

An economical school, whose principal object is the instruction of the
children of the refugees from the West Indies, was opened some time since

22 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

in this city, where, in addition to the elementary parts of education, gram-
mar, history, geography, and the French language are taught. It is con-
ducted on the plan of Lancaster, with modifications and. extensions, and is
patronized and cherished by French and American gentlemen of great worth
and respectability, who are entitled to every praise for their benevolence.
Children of either sex are admitted, without distinction of nation, religion,
or fortune. This seminary is in a flourishing condition, and contains two
hundred scholars. There are two masters in this seminary, and two women
who teach needle-work ; and there is a printing-press, where such as have
any talents in that way are taught that important art.

We have also the satisfaction of seeing the benefits of this system ex-
tended, either in whole or in part, to the charity schools of the Dutch,
Episcopal, and Methodist Churches, and of the Presbyterian Church in Rut-
gers street ; and also to the school founded by the Manumission Society, for
the education of the people of color, which lias, in consequence of this
amelioration, been augmented from seventy to one hundred and thirty chil-
dren.

In Philadelphia the same laudable spirit has been manifested. Two
deputations from that city have visited us for the express purpose of exam-
ining our school. One of these made so favorable a report on their return,
that a number of the more enterprising and benevolent citizens, composed
of members belonging to the Society of Friends, immediately associated
under the name of the " Adelphi Society," and raised, by private subscrip-
tion, a sum sufficient to purchase a suitable lot of ground, to erect a hand-
some two-story brick building seventy-five feet in length and thirty-five in
breadth, in which they formed two spacious rooms. The Adelphi school
now contains two hundred children, under the care of one teacher, and is
eminently prosperous. The other deputation made also a favorable report,
and "The Philadelphia Free-School Society," an old and respectable institu-
tion, adopted., in consequence, our system, where it flourishes beyond expec-
tation.

Two female schools, one called the " Aimwell School," in Philadelphia,
and another in Burlington, N. J., have also embraced our plan with equal
success.

I trust that I shall be pardoned for this detail. The origin and progress
of beneficial discoveries cannot be too minutely specified ; and when their
diffusion can only be exceeded by their excellence, we have peculiar reason
to congratulate the friends of humanity. This prompt and general encour-
agement is honorable to our national character, and shows conclusively that
the habits, manners, and opinions of the American people are favorable to
the reception of truth and the propagation of knowledge. And no earthly
consideration could induce the benevolent man to whom we are indebted for
what we see this day,, to exchange his feelings, if from the obscure mansions
of indigence, in which, in all human probability, he now is instilling com-
fort into the hearts and infusing knowledge into the minds of the poor, he
could hear the voice of a great and enlightened people pronouncing his
eulogium, and see this parent seminary, and the establishments which have

ADDRESS BY DE WITT CLINTON. 23

sprung from its bosom, diffusing light, imparting joy, and dispensing virtue.
His tree of knowledge is indeed transplanted to a more fertile soil and a
more congenial clime. It has flourished with uncommon vigor and beauty ;
its luxuriant and wide-spreading branches afford shelter to all who require
it ; its ambrosial fragrance fills the land, and its head reaches the heavens !

Far be it from my intention to prevent future exertion. For, although
much has been done, yet much remains to do, to carry into full effect the
system. It would be improper to conceal from you, that, in order to finish
this edifice, v/e have incurred a considerable debt, which our ordinary in-
come cannot extinguish ; and that, therefore, we must repose ourselves on
the public beneficence. It has been usual to supply the more indigent chil-
dren with necessaries, to protect them against the inclemencies of winter ;
for without this provision their attendance would be utterly impracticable.
This has hitherto been accomplished by the bounty of individuals, and to
no other source can we at present appeal with success.

The law from which we derive our corporate existence does not confine
us to one seminary, but contemplates the establishment of schools. A re-
striction to a single institution would greatly impair our usefulness, and
would effectually discourage those exertions which are necessary in order to
spread knowledge among all the indigent.

Col. Henry Rutgers, with his characteristic benevolence, has made a do-
nation of two lots in Henry street, worth at least twenty-five hundred dol-
lars, to this corporation. By a condition contained in one of the deeds, it is
necessary that we should erect a school-house by June, 1811 ; and it is high-
ly proper, without any reference to the condition, that this should be accom-
plished as soon as possible, in order to meet the wants of the indigent in
that populous part of the city. If some charitable and public-spirited citi-
zen would follow up this beneficence, and make a similar conveyance on the
opposite side of the city, and if the liberality of the public shall dispense
the means of erecting the necessary buildings, then the exigencies of all our
poor, with respect to education, would be amply supplied for a number of
years.

. After our youth are instructed in the elements of useful knowledge, it is
indispensable to their future usefulness that some calling should be marked
out for them. As most of them will undoubtedly be brought up in useful
trades, pecuniary means to facilitate their progress to this object would, if
properly applied, greatly redound to the benefit of the individual, as well as
to the poor of the community.

In such an extensive and comprehensive establishment we are to expect,
according to the course of human events, that children of extraordinary-
genius and merit will rise up, entitled to extraordinary patronage. To select
such from the common mass to watch over their future destiny to advance
them through all the stages of education and through all the grades of
knowledge, and to settle them in useful and honorable professions, are duties
of primary importance, and indispensable obligations. This, however, will
require considerable funds ; but of what estimation are pecuniary sacrifices,
when put in the scale against the important benefits that may result ? And

24: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

if we could draw aside the veil of futurity, perhaps we might see iu the off-
spring of this establishment, so patronized and so encouraged, characters
that will do honor to human nature that will have it in their power

The applause of listening senates to command,

The threats of pain and ruin to despise ;
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes.

The experience of the Society having made the expediency
of an amendment of the law apparent, the trustees memorial-
ized the Legislature accordingly, and on the 24th of March,
1810, an act was passed, directing that no person should be
thereafter entitled to become a member of the Society unless he
should contribute the sum of fifty dollars ; and that every mem-
ber hereafter admitted should have the right to send one child
to one of the schools of the Society ; but that nothing in the
act should be deemed to affect the rights of those who were
members at the time of the passage of the act.

It was also enacted, that at each first meeting of the trus-
tees, after every annual election, it should be in their discretion
to appoint, out of the members of the Society, an additional
number of trustees, not exceeding five. In the same act the
Legislature made a further Appropriation of the sum of four
thousand dollars for the Society.

The trustees deeming it advisable to establish, without loss
of time, another school on the ground presented by Col. Henry
Rutgers, subscriptions were opened early m the year 1810, for
the purpose of enabling them to erect the contemplated build-
ing. The benevolence of the citizens of New York, great on all
occasions, promptly responded to this effort ; and although the
trustees had so recently collected the sum of ten thousand dol-
lars, they obtained, on this occasion, an additional subscription
of over thirteen thousand dollars.

In the autumn of the same year, the trustees were deprived
of the services of one of their ablest coadjutors, by the death of
their Secretary, BENJAMIN D. PERKINS. His labors in behalf of
the Society had been of marked value, and a record was entered
on the minutes expressive of their sense of the loss which had
been sustained, and of their respect and esteem for the memory
of their fellow-laborer.

A committee having been appointed to proceed with and

SCHOOL NO. 2. 25

superintend the erection of the school-house in Henry street, and
the necessary contracts having been completed, the corner-stone
of the new building was laid on the llth of November, 1810, by
the benevolent donor of the site. The ceremony was witnessed by
several members of the Corporation of the city, and other citizens.

In December of the same year, one hundred dollars were
appropriated to the purchase of suitable books, to commence a
circulating library for the school, additions to which were solicit-
ed from the members of the Society. During the same month a
legacy of two hundred and fifty dollars was bequeathed to the
Society by CHARLES LE Roux, Esq.

The year 1811 was marked by the further extension of public
patronage and assistance. The Legislature again testified their
approbation of the institution, by the passage of an act, on the
30th of March, in which a grant of four thousand dollars was
made to tlie Society for building purposes, and an additional
annual sum of five hundred dollars, until the pleasure of the
Legislature should otherwise determine.

Two eligible positions for schools having now been obtained,
it appeared to the trustees that an additional school in the north-
western part of the city would enable them to extend the sphere
of their usefulness with great benefit to that vicinity. The vil-
lage of Greenwich at that time comprised a suburban population
of considerable magnitude, presenting, in the character of a large
class of its population, a ripe field for the labors of the Society.
A large portion of the landed property belonged to the corpora-
tion of Trinity Church ; and, inspired with some hope that the
petition would be responded to, the trustees appealed to the
vestry, in the spring of 1811, for a site for a new free school.
The vestry promptly and generously granted to the Society two
large lots of ground at the corner of Hudson and Grove streets,
near the village of Greenwich. The estimated value of the lots
was one thousand dollars.

The building in Henry street being completed, it was opened
on the 13th of November, 1811, and known as School No. 2.
The edifice was eighty feet in length and forty in width, and
accommodated three hundred children ; while in the lower story
was an apartment suitable for the use of one hundred and fifty
others. The building resembled that erected for No. 1, in Chat-
ham street, although much smaller in size, and, like it, had ac-

26 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

commodations for the family of the teacher. It was completed
at an expense of about $11,000.

The increasing labor and responsibility devolving upon the
trustees led them to desire a further addition to their working

force by an increase of their number, and they applied to the
Legislature for authority to make this election. In compliance
with the request, that body passed an act, on the 28th of Febru-
ary, 1812, directing that the Society should thereafter elect six
trustees in addition to those primarily authorized by law.

The system which had been commenced with so much solici-
tude and care had now reached a point in its history when it was
regarded as being not only a permanent, but an expansive, institu-
tion. The responsibility of so organizing and maturing the sys-
tem of instruction as to make it at once thorough in its operations
and as faultless as possible in its details, in order that it should
commend itself to the public favor and confidence, was deeply felt.

The original object of the Society having been to provide for
the education of those children " who did not belong to, or were
not provided for, by any religious society," the question would
naturally present itself to the minds of all who were impressed
with the importance of inculcating moral and religious truth,
whether such a class of children, and so numerous as they ap-
peared to be, should be left without such instruction. Pleasure
and satisfaction were expressed by all acquainted with the schools
at the results which had been reached in the literary training of
the pupils, and the improvement in their conduct and inter-
course, to which special attention was given. Yet there were
some who thought that sufficient care had not been bestowed in
the communication of specific religious instruction. A. concern
of such high importance had not, however, been overlooked by
the trustees ; and they had pursued such measures in regard to
it as they considered to be most expedient. The board was
composed of persons of almost every religious denomination
men who were attached to their respective creeds, and who
would not fail, on suitable occasions, to recommend them to the
attention of others. But, in the schools under their care, they
had studiously avoided the inculcation of the peculiar tenets of
any one religious society or denomination. From the commence-
ment of their effort, they had directed that the Holy Scriptures
should be read daily in the schools ; and it was thought that the

THE FEMALE ASSOCIATION. 27

minds of the children could not fail to be impressed with the
sublime precepts and the inspired teachings of the Sacred Vol-
ume. In order, however, to meet the 1 wishes of all, it was
deemed expedient to suspend the exercises of the school on Tues-
day afternoon of each week, and devote the time of the session
exclusively to the religious instruction of the children. An asso-
ciation of more than fifty ladies of the first position and charac-
ter, and belonging to the different religious denominations in the
city, volunteered their services ; and they accordingly met at the
schools to examine the children in their respective catechisms on
the day appointed for that purpose.

In addition to these labors, it was also determined that the
children should assemble at their respective schools on the morning
of every Sunday, and proceed, under the care of a monitor, to the
places of public worship to which they respectively belonged.

Thus far the schools had been organized for males only ; but
apartments were reserved -in both the buildings for the use of
female schools, and in these rooms the FEMALE ASSOCIATION,
composed of ladies, members of the Society of Friends, conduct-
ed schools for girls. They adopted the Lancasterian plan cf
instruction, similar to that of the male schools, and besides the
elementary parts of education, they taught needle-work and
other useful employments. The two schools were attended by
about three hundred girls, while the boys' schools numbered
about eight hundred pupils as the average attendance.

Kine years had now elapsed since the foundation of the Soci-
ety, and the trustees had the satisfaction of seeing their efforts
not only crowned w r ith success, but their enterprise placed on a
liberal and permanent basis, which exceeded all the anticipations
they had dared to entertain. They had introduced to this coun-
try a method of instruction well adapted to effect its objects,
comprehensive and economical. It had demonstrated its utility,
its simplicity, and its value, and had so stimulated the labors of
philanthropists in other cities and towns, that many similar insti-
tutions had sprung into existence, modelled after the parent so-
ciety in New York. The benefits thus positively reaped were
multiplied, and an impetus was given to the work of popular
education, which could scarcely have been gained by any other
method, however good, which did not possess its novelty and its
characteristics.

28 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

% CHAPTER II.

HISTORY FROM 1817-1822.

New Schools Proposed Lancasterian Teacher from England A Legacy Instruction
of Monitors Economy Discipline School No. 3 School No. 4 School Libra-
ries Teachers Trained Charles Picton The Freemasons Monitors and Ap-
prentices " Morning Schools " New Regulations Manual Shepherd Johnson
Joseph Lancaster Visit to New York Finances Memorial to the Legislature
Grant of $5,000 Address to the Parents and Guardians of Children Sunday,
and Sunday Schools The Female Association School No. 4 Opened Death of
John Murray New Building for No. 3 Manual of Instruction State of the
Schools Rev. J. N. Maffit's Address to the Schools School No. 2 Catechism
Adopted Visit of a Committee of the Legislature The Bethel Baptist Church
Special Privileges School No. 5 Plans and Estimates for Extension of the Sys-
tem A Man of Fortune, and a Man in Independent Circumstances Lots for
School No. 5 Purchased The Bethel Baptist Church.

THE population in the eastern part of the city increased, and
offered a growing field for the operations of the Society. In the
early part of the year 181T, the propriety of erecting a school-
house in a central location, between, the Bowery and the East
River, was discussed ; and Thomas Eddy, James Palmer, Henry
Eckford, Xoah Brown, and "Whitehead Hicks were appointed a
committee to ascertain what amount of subscriptions could be
obtained toward the purchase of lots and the erection of a
building, and also to obtain plans and estimates. In consequence
of the difficulty of procuring a proper site, the purchase was not
made until 1818, when three lots were obtained in Rivington
street, upon which the school known as Ko. 4 was afterward
erected.

The employment of competent teachers for the schools sug-
gested to the board the propriety of securing the services of an
experienced teacher, well qualified to conduct a school on the
Lancasterinn system as taught in England. A committee of
three was appointed to correspond with gentlemen in that coun-
try, who should select a teacher thus qualified.

NEW SCHOOLS. 29

During the year, a legacy of two hundred ajid fifty dollars
was received from the estate of Mary McCrea, and another of
five hundred dollars, bequeathed by John Van Blarcom, which
were valuable contributions to the means of the Society.

The organization of a class of monitors, who should enjoy
the benefits of a systematic training in advanced studies, formed
an important measure in the work of the year.

The necessity of an economical administration of the affairs
of the Society, which had always been of primary consideration
with the trustees, was urged upon the attention of the board,
and referred to a committee. The report embraced the follow-
ing recommendations :

1st. That the office of assistants be abolished.

2d. That no rewards be given to the monitors in money, nor
in any tiling else, except on extraordinary occasions, arid those
of but small value.

3d. That one or two persons be appointed whose business it
should be to purchase all supplies for the institution, on the low-
est possible terms.

The first recommendation was promptly adopted, and a reso-
lution was passed terminating the engagements of the assistant
teachers at the expiration of the several terms for which they
were employed. Jacob Lorillard and Lindley Murray were ap-
pointed supply committee ; and the question in reference to
monitors entered into the general plan of rewards and punish-
ments, and the organization of the monitorial class.

The system of rewards and discipline occupied the special
attention of the board during a part of the year, and the report
of the committee to whom that subject had been assigned was
submitted at the first meeting held in 1818.

During the latter part of the year, the residents in that sec-
tion of the city known as Corlear's Hook presented a petition for
the establishment of a free school in then* vicinity ; but the
trustees were unable to comply with the application.

In the early part of 1818, information was communicated to
the board that a room in the building on the corner of Hudson
and Christopher streets could be procured from the Corporation
of the city for school purposes ; and Thomas C. Taylor, Najah
Taylor, and John K. Murray Were named as a committee to
make application for the premises, if found suitable, and super-

30 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

intend their preparation for the reception of pupils. The com-
mittee reported, on the 1st of May, that the arrangements had
been made ; and SHEPHERD JOHNSON, who had heen trained in
Free School No. 1, was appointed teacher, at a salary of five
hundred dollars per annum. The school was opened on the 25th
of the same month, with 51 pupils, the number of which was
increased to 196 before the 5th of June.

The school increased in numbers with such rapidity, that, at
the meeting of the board held on the 23d of the same month,
the committee reported that 216 scholars had been admitted,
with a regular attendance of over 200. The room, however, not
being large enough to accommodate more than 164 scholars, a
recommendation was submitted that application be made to the
Corporation for the use of another apartment in the same build-
ing. This application was made and promptly granted.

At the meeting held on the 1st of May, the committee for
the purchase of lots in the eastern part of the city reported that
they had contracted with John K. Livingston for the purchase
of three lots of ground in Kivington street, between Ridge and
Pitt streets, for seven hundred dollars each. The action of the
committee was approved by the board, .and they were author-
ized to make the purchase. The treasurer was directed to sell
sufficient stock held by the Society to meet the warrant of the
committee of purchase. The report of plans and estimates for
the building was submitted in September, and the sum of
10,724.36 was named as the cost of the erection of the new
house, which became known as No. 4. The contract, however,
was made for $9,000.

At the close of the year, a committee on the " state of the
New York Free School " reported several measures of improve-
ment, among which was the establishment of school libraries.
The resolution of the committee called for the expenditure of
fifty dollars for books for a library for each school, the use to be
limited to the best scholars, who should form a " class of
merit."

The same committee recommended that young men wishing
to qualify themselves for the profession of teaching on the sys-
tem of Joseph Lancaster, should be allowed to visit the schools
and assist the teacher in the discharge of his duties, and, after a
period of six weeks spent in acquiring a knowledge of the sys-

THE FREEMASONS. 31

tern, they should be furnished with a certificate k> that effect,
signed by the president and secretary.

The committee appointed to correspond with the secretary
of the British and Foreign School Society, with reference to the
selection of an experienced Lancasterian teacher, reported, early
in June, that they had received a letter from that gentleman,
communicating the fact that they had made choice of Mi\
CHARLES PICTON, who was approved by the Society, and had
been engaged on the terms offered by the committee, and that
he would sail for New York in June. A resolution of thanks to
the secretary was adopted, and the committee directed to re-
ceive Mr. Picton on his arrival.

At the meeting held on September 4, the chairman laid be-
fore the board a letter from the British and Foreign School
Society, introducing Mr. Picton, the* teacher, who had arrived,
and awaited the action of the board. Mr. Picton was present
and introduced to the trustees, and cordially welcomed to his
new field of labor.

During the year 1810, an arrangement had been made be-
tween a committee of the Free-School Society and a committee
acting on behalf of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons, for the
education of fifty children of members of that Society, on the
annual payment of three hundred dollars. The arrangement
was approved by the board on the 4th of June, 1810, and was
continued until the close of 1817, when the treasurer was noti-
fied that the Grand Lodge desired to terminate the agreement.

In January, 1818, a committee was appointed by the board
to report upon the communication from the Grand Lodge ; and
in June the committee reported in favor of terminating the
arrangement, and at the same time recommended that the chil-
dren presented for admission by the Masons should enjoy all the
advantages of the Free-School Society, without any discrimina-
tion. The report was unanimously adopted.

The committee on the classification and education of moni-
tors, besides other, recommendations, in October submitted a re-
port, in which it was advised that monitors should be indentured
as apprentices to the Society, to learn the art of teaching by a
regular form, as in other pursuits. The matter was discussed at
several meetings, and finally recommitted, as the power of the
board to hold apprentices was doubtful. The committee was

32 TIIE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

enlarged, and authorized to prepare a memorial to the Legisla-
ture, asking for the proper legal assistance in perfecting the
measure, if deemed advisable.

The report on the general interests of the institution, which
was presented by the committee in November, contained several
propositions, which were adopted by the board. Among these
were the following : " Morning schools to be held from 6 to 8
o'clock, for the " apprentices," or monitors, and the more merito-
rious of the pupils in the higher classes ; the ordering of an
annual invoice of the quantity of supplies required in each of
the schools for the year ; a provision of $50 for a library for the
several schools ; and the permission to young men to practice
teaching in the schools, and receive credentials accordingly.

A petition for the establishment of a school in the northeast-
em section of the city was* received, and referred to a commit-
tee, Consisting of James Palmer, Henry Eckford, Whitehead
Hicks, John Withington, and Benjamin Marshall, who were
directed to report on all questions relative to the enterprise.

A manual of the system of instruction adopted in the schools
being deemed desirable, the preparation of the work was en-
trusted to Jeremiah Thompson, Rensselaer Havens, and Samuel
Wood.

A resolution was adopted, on the 4th of December, in rela-
tion to the teacher of No. 3, as follows :

Resolved, That, on account of the increased size of SHEPHEBD JOHNSON'S
school, and the satisfactory discharge of duty on his part, his salary be in-
creased to eight hundred dollars, to date from the 1st of November last.

JOSEPH LANCASTER, the founder of the system of instruction
known by his name, was at this time in the city of New York,
on a visit in behalf of popular education. To afford him the
opportunity of making his system known, as well as to receive
the benefits of his suggestions and long experience, the board
adopted a resolution, offered by the president, DE WITT CLIN-
TON, permitting him to use the school-rooms of the Society at
such hours as were not devoted to instruction, for the purpose of
delivering lectures on the monitorial system.

The commencement of the year 1819 found the Society in a
condition of active usefulness, but with insufficient means. The
demands made upon its resources in order to keep the schools in

MEMORIAL TO THE LEGISLATURE. 33

operation, and to supply the books and other apparatus of in-
struction, were so considerable as to make an effort at retrench-
ment necessary, and almost Imperative. The committee to
whom the question of the financial condition of the Society had
been referred, reported in January, and submitted the following
facts :

The payments of the last quarter, exclusive of those on ac-
count of fitting up premises for ~No. 3, and building No. 4,'
amounted to $2,035.78, or $680 per month.

The expenses of the year, as estimated by the committee,
amounted to $14,300 ; to provide for which there was a balance
in the treasury of $2,235 ; probable collections in. the Seventh
Ward, $500 ; rents, &c., $100 ; total, $2,235 ; leaving a deficien-
cy of $11,465.

The committee recommended that an application be made to
the Legislature for pecuniary aid, and that temporary loans be
secured until permanent relief should be afforded from other
sources. The salaries of the teachers of Nos. 1 and 2 were also
reduced to $800 per annum ; and it was also recommended that
tho regulations allowing board and clothing to the monitors gen-
eral should be abolished, and an annual salary of $100 be
allowed them. It was estimated that these retrenchments would
save the Society about $1,000 yearly.

The committee also suggested that a statement of the finan-
cial condition of the Society should be made to the Female As-
sociation which had the charge of the schools for girls, and that
they be informed that a payment of $500 a year as rental would
be received in aid of the Society, but that the said communica-
tion should not be construed as a demand.

The report of the committee was adopted, and the several
measures recommended were referred to appropriate special com-
mittees for their action.

On the 19th of January,, the board held a meeting to con-
sider the report of the committee to prepare a memorial to the
Legislature, which was adopted, as follows :

To the Representatives of the People of the State of New York in Senate and

Assembly convened :

The Memorial of the Free-School Society of New 'Yorfc,
RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH,

That, in the year 1805, your memorialists, under a deep conviction
3

34r THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

that early and wholesome principles of education were of the first impor-
tance to the security, prosperity, and happiness of every community, united
their exertions to establish the Free-School Society of New York.

Feelin" the insufficiency of their efforts, unless sustained by public mu-
nificence, they have applied to the Legislature of the State at various times
for aid and assistance, and met with an encouragement characteristic of the
Representatives of an enlightened people.

Fostered by legislative bounty and private liberality, they have been
enabled to persevere in the prosecution of their object, and to crown their
original design with great success.

From the establishment of the Free-School Society to the present time,
7,541 children have been taught in the schools under its superintendence ;
and there are now in the schools 1,169 children who are daily instructed in
the various branches of elementary education, so far as is requisite for the
transaction of business in the ordinary concerns of life.

In extending these blessings, your memorialists have adopted the Lan-
easterian plan of instruction, which was introduced into the United States
by them, and has been found preferable to all others. The experience of
Europe, wherein its principles have been extensively adopted, sanctions its
superior excellence ; and in our own country, so far as it has been practised,
it has received the most unqualified approbation. Its preference has been
found in the saving of expense, when compared with the ordinary methods
of school instruction, and in the ease and expedition with which children
can be taught the requisite lessons. The expense of each pupil has been
found to be less than four dollars annually, including teachers' salaries, sta-
tionery, and all other incidental charges ; whereas, according to the former
method, the annual expense was not less than sixteen dollars, in this city,
for each scholar a test that palpably evinces the superiority of the present
imode of instruction.

The general influence of our schools has not been confined to the city of
New York. In order to promote a more extended knowledge of the system,
and the establishment of similar schools, they have been and are open, free
of expense, to the inspection and attendance of persons from different parts
of this and other States, a sufficient time to enable them to acquire the
means aad capacity of imparting instruction to others, on the Lancasterian
plan, with ease and dispatch.

By direction of the trustees, Lancasterian lessons have been printed for
!the use of the Junior classes in country schools ; and they are now engaged
in preparing a manual of the system for the assistance of teachers in organ-
izing and conducting their schools on the plan pursued in this city.

Public conviction bears a testimony that, your memorialists believe, has
no exception to the happy results which have already been realized from
these schools. Their salutary influence is everywhere acknowledged, and
the condition of the poor finds a melioration that not only imparts present
comfort and relief, but which will be felt by future generations.

Notwithstanding the liberality of former Legislatures, and the fruitful
source of support which your memorialists have found in the contributions

MEMORIAL TO THE LEGISLATURE. 35

of individual charity, such has been the great increase of population, par-
ticularly by the influx of foreigners in the city of New York, and of the
number of poor children whom the trustees of the Free-School Society
have been impelled to provide for by the strongest dictates of duty and
benevolence, that they have incurred recent expenses which their present
resources are incompetent to discharge. During the past year they have
established a third school at Greenwich, at an expense of about $1,200.
They have also purchased lots, and are erecting a building to contain nearly
600 children, in the northeastern part of the city, the expense of which
establishment will be about $13,000. This building is constructing in a
quarter of our metropolis where the want of schools is extremely great, and
where the blessings of elementary instruction among the lower orders were
not enjoyed. Your memorialists could not, consistently with the noble plan
of charity committed to their charge, hear the daily calls of this la ge por-
tion of the community in vain, or behold the baneful triumph of increasing
ignorance and vice, without an effort to remove the evil.

Trusting with confidence to the uniform liberality of an enlightened
Legislature in diffusing the manifold blessings of education, and considering
the State Government as the protecting parent, who has long nursed with
parental regard this adopted child of her bounty, the New York Free-School
Society, your memorialists, respectfully petition for a grant of ten thousand
four hundred and sixty-five dollars, out of such funds as the wisdom of the
Legislature shall designate, to enable them to complete their new improve-
ments.

In respectfully soliciting this grant, and in congratulating the Legislature
on the salutary effects of their former encouragement, your memorialists
remark, that, as the city of New York rapidly increases in population, the
number is multiplied of poor and suffering children, who must progress
from the cradle to maturity, with no schools bu those of profligacy and
guilt, unless the hand of charity be extended to reclaim their steps. If we
would prevent the vices and crimes of European cities from visiting our
own ; if we' would prohibit the sanguinary penal codes of Europe from
reaching our shores, we must look to early education and early habits, the
fundamental springs of action and character in all communities, as the pro-
tecting resort ; if we would perpetuate our civil institutions and our religious
privileges, we must look to early education to guard and strengthen their
foundation.

Believing these observations will be reciprocated by the public body to
whom they address their memorial, they make their appeal with confidence,
remembering it is to a body to whom your memorialists have never appealed
in vain, when their object has been to extend the cheering light of edu-
cation.

Let it be remembered, when the petition of your memorialists is consid-
ered, that nearly two thousand children will, the ensuing season, be under
their care, and that it is on behalf of these, and many thousands more who
will hereafter claim their charge, that your memorialists appeal to the Hon-
orable Legislature.

36 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The answer to this application was the passage of an act, on
the 26th of March, making an appropriation of $5,000 for the
use of the Society.

A committee having been appointed to prepare an address
to the public on behalf of the Society, a draft thereof was offered
for acceptance, recommitted, and at the meeting held on the 9th
of April, it was adopted. This address contains a very clear ex-
pression of the views and motives which governed the Society
and its friends, and is interesting not only as an embodiment of
those views, but as an authentic avowal of the nature of the re-
ligious influences which at the time prevailed in the Society.
Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the theological
character of the address, it may be safely assumed that men
acting under such high convictions could not be unworthy of
confidence in the delicate and responsible work of training the
young and neglected members of society. The address is as
follows :

AN ADDRESS

To the Parents and Guardians of the Children belonging to the Schools under

the care of the New York Free-School Society.

SEC. 1. The New York Free Schools, for the instruction of such chil-
dren as are the objects of a gratuitous education, have been established
many years ; and the trustees have endeavored to render them useful and
promotive of the moral and literary improvement of the scholars, and they
still wish to do all in their power to advance the welfare of both children
and parent.

SEC, 2. They wish to impress on your minds the importance of this
establishment, that you may manifest an increasing concern for its prosper-
ity, seeing that much depends on your cooperation in the support of an
institution which is intended to promote not only the good of your children,
but their happiness and yours, both here and hereafter.

SEC. 3. It is of great importance that the minds of your children should
be early cultivated and moral instruction inculcated, and that, by example
as well as precept, you should use all endeavors to preserve them in inno-
cency.

SEC. 4. As a good education is calculated to lay the foundation of use-
fulness and respectability, both in civil and religious society, it is your duty
to improve every opportunity to promote it.

SEC. 5. This institution holds out much encouragement, and you are
bound by every moral obligation to avail yourselves of the advantages which
your children may derive from a steady attendance at school, where they
may acquire not only school learning to qualify them for business, but be
improved in their morals and manners.

ADDRESS TO PARENTS. 37

SEC. 6. Many of you have not been favored with the privileges your
children now enjoy that of a gratuitous education. Every parent who is
solicitous for the welfare of his offspring, but whose circumstances may be
such as not to be able to pay the expense, is invited to come forward and
place them where they may be instructed in literature, in the paths of vir-
tue, and in the road to happiness.

SEC. 7. The trustees may venture to say, that this institution may be
productive of great good to you, and to your children especially, if, on your
part, there is a disposition to promote it. We wish your children may be
furnished with a good education, and early acquire good habits. As they
grow in years, they should be impressed with the importance of industry and
frugality. These are virtues necessary to form useful characters.

SEC. 8. You know that many evils grow out of idleness, and many more
out of the improper use of spirituous liquors ; that they are ruinous and
destructive to morals, and debase the human character below the lowest of
all created beings ; we therefore earnestly desire you may be watchful and
careful in this respect, otherwise in vain may we labor to promote the wel-
fare of your children.

SEC. 9. In domestic life there are many virtues which are requisite in
order to promote the comfort and welfare of families. Temperance and
economy are indispensable, but without cleanliness, your enjoyments as well
as your reputation will be impaired. It is promotive of health, and ought
not to be neglected. Parents can, perhaps, scarcely give a greater proof of
their care for their children, than by keeping them clean and decent, espe-
cially when they are sent to school, where it is expected they will appear
with their hands, faces, and heads perfectly clean, and their clothing clean
and in good order. The appearance of children exhibits to every observing
mind the character of the mother.

SEC. 10. Among other moral and religious duties, that of a due observ-
ance of the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, we consider of
importance to yourselves and to your children. Public worship is a duty we
owe to our Creator ; it is of universal obligation, and you ought to be good
examples therein, encouraging your families to the due observance thereof ;
and believing, as we do, that the establishment of what is called Sunday
schools has been a blessing to many, and may prove so to many more, we
are desirous you may unite in the support of a plan so well calculated to
promote the religious duties of that day, which ought to be appropriated to
public worship, retirement, and other duties connected with the improve-
ment of the mind.

SEC. 11. Seeing, next to your own souls, your children and those placed
under your care are, or ought to be, the immediate objects of your constant
attention and diligent concern, you ought to omit no opportunity to instruct
them early in the principles of the Christian religion, in order to bring them,
in their youth, to a sense of the unspeakable love and infinite wisdom and
power of their Almighty Creator ; for good and early impressions on tender
minds often prove a lasting means of preserving them in a religious life
even to old age. May you, therefore, watch over them for good, and rule

38 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

over them in the fear of GOD, maintaining your authority in love ; and as
very much depends on the care and exemplary conduct of parents, and the
judicious management of children by tutors, we cannot too strongly recom-
mend to their serious consideration the importance of the subject, as one
deeply interesting to the welfare of the rising generation, and no less con-
nected with the best interests of civil and religious society.

SEC. 12. As the Holy Scriptures, or Bible, with which you ought all to
be furnished, contain a full account of things most surely to be believed and
Divine commands most faithfully to be obeyed, and are said to make wise
unto salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ (2 Tim. iii. 15), it is
the duty of every Christian to be frequent and diligent in the reading of
them in their families, and in privately meditating on those sacred records.

SEC. 13. The trustees of the New York Free School, however desirous
they may be to promote the improvement of the scholars in school learning,
to qualify and fit them for the common duties of life, cannot view with an
eye of indifference the more primary object of an education calculated to
form habits of virtue and industry, and to inculcate the general principles
of Christianity ; for in proportion as you are established in a life of piety
and virtue, you will be enabled to bring up your children in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord, ever bearing in remembrance that example speaks
a louder language than precept.

SEC. 14. It may not be improper to state to you, that the establishment
of the New York Free School has been attended with much labor and per-
sonal exertions on the part of its Mends and patrons ; great expense has
also accrued, and continues to be the case, where so many buildings are
erected and so many teachers employed ; and as all this is done in order to
promote the good of your children, and to improve their condition, you can-
not but feel a weight of obligation to the friends and patroms of so valu-
able an institution. In speaking of the teachers, it is due to them and their
meritorious conduct to say, that they have manifested a zeal and concern for
the welfare and impovement of the children placed under their care, and we
wish they may be encouraged to persevere in the arduous service assigned
them.

SCE. 15. There are divers other things which we could enumerate as con-
nected with the subject of this address ; but it cannot be expected, in a
communication of this nature, we should embrace every duty or point out
minutely every thing which might have a bearing on your religious and
moral character ; but, before we close, we think it necessary to subjoin the
substance of such of the rules of the schools as may in part lay with the
parents and guardians to notice and enforce. -The trustees therefore call on
you to see that these rules are strictly observed by your children :

1. Your children must be in school precisely at 9 o'clock in the morning
and 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

2. They ought to be sent to school every day, both morning and after-
noon ; otherwise they may forget in one day what they learned the day
before. Nothing but sickness, or some unavoidable circumstance, should
induce you to keep your children at home one day. If they do not attend

ADDRESS TO PARENTS. 39

school regularly, the teacher is to send to you to know the reason ; and if
they are absent from school six days in a month -without sufficient reason, or
if they frequently play truant, they are liable to be expelled, and you may
find it very difficult to get them into school again. The trustees therefore
earnestly hope that you will not, by keeping your children at home without
cause, or by suffering them to be absent, counteract their endeavors to pro-
cure for them 'a good education.

3. It is necessary that you should see that your children go to school
with clean faces and hands, their hair combed and in good order, and their
clothes as clean and whole as possible ; otherwise they are liable to be pun-
ished for your neglect.

4. A morning school is intended to be kept in the summer, to begin at 6
o'clock, and close at 8 o'clock.

5. A library of interesting and useful books has been provided for the
use of those children who are forward in their learning ; and as they may
be indulged at times to take them home for awhile, they may prove a source
of pleasure and improvement to both children and parents.

6. If your children behave well, and study their lessons at home, they
will be rewarded with tickets ; but if they behave badly, and will not study,
they must be punished.

7. In order to get a child into the Free School, it is required that appli-
cation be made at the school on the second day of the week, commonly
called Monday, from the hours of 4 to 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

8. No child can be admitted under six years of age.

9. The children of parents who are able to pay for schooling cannot bs
admitted.

10. It is expected that parents see that their children regularly attend
some place of worship.

DE WITT CLINTON, President.

JOHN MURE AY, Jr., Vice-President.

LEONARD BLEECKER, Treasurer.

LINDLEY MURRAY, Secretary.

John Adams, John Withington,

Samuel Boyd, Rensselaer Havens,

Benjamin Clark, Ezra Weeks,

Nathan Comstock, Benjamin Marshall,

Thomas Eddy, Francis Cooper,

Whitehead Hicks, Lyman Spalding,

Jacob Lorillard, Henry Eckford,

Samuel Wood, Charles Miller,

John R. Murray, John Pintard,

Thomas L. Ogden, Samuel James,

James Palmer, Isaac Collins,

Henry Rutgers, William Cairna,

Jeremiah Thompson, George T. Trimble,

Najah Taylor, William Perry,

Thomas C. Taylor, George Suckley.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The committee tg prepare a manual for the schools report-
ed, during the month of April, adversely to the measure as being
unnecessary. Their recommendation -was laid upon the table,
and, at the meeting in May, was taken up for consideration, and
the committee was discharged. The original resolution was,
however, referred to a new committee, consisting of George T.
Trimble, Samuel Wood, and Lindley Murray, who were direct-
ed to prepare and submit a Lancasterian manual for the schools.

The great influence of a proper regard for the first day of the
week on the moral habits and character of the young, has already
been alluded to, and the estimate in which this influence was
held has been fully shown in the address to parents and guar-
dians. A committee on the general state of the institution made
a special communication of the following facts : In School No.
1, out of 480 scholars on register, 397 attended church regular-
ly ; in No. 2, of 437 on the register, 335 attended ; and in No.
3, of 333 on register, 312 were regular attendants at some place
of worship. The trustees regarded this as an extraordinary and
very gratifying circumstance.

At the annual election in May, in consequence of the desire
of Leonard Bleecker to resign the office of treasurer of the So-
ciety, the duties of which he had discharged from the date of its
organization, EENSSELAER HAVENS was elected in his place. This
gentleman, however, declined to serve, and Mr. Bleecker was re-
quested to discharge the duties until a new appointment could be
made. At the meeting held on the 4th of June, GEORGE T.
TRIMBLE was elected to fill the vacancy.

The committee to confer with the Female Association re-
ported that the association, under a conviction that its funds
would be reduced, and that their labors were only a department
of the Free-School system, replied that it would be inexpedient
for them to pay the sum designated as rental ; but, on a recon-
sideration of the matter, it was resolved to allow $400 per an-
num to the Society, which was accepted.

, School No. 4, in Rivington street, was opened on the 1st of
May, with 133 pupils on register, to which 223 others were add-
ed before the 24th of the same month, making, on that day,
356 ; of which 200 were boys and 156 were girls.

Charles Picton, the teacher sent out from England for the
purpose, was appointed teacher of the new school ; and, to ena-

SCHOOL MANUAL. 41

ble him to carry out the system on his own plan, he was authorized
to conduct the school under such plans and regulations as seemed
to him best calculated to perfect the objects of the institution.
By a subsequent resolution, adopted in September, Mrs. Picton
was appointed to the girls' school, which had been already opened
on the 30th of August, with 182 girls.

During the month of August, the Society was bereaved of its
vice-president, JOHN MURRAY, Jr., who died on the 4th of that
month. He was chosen vice-president at the organization of
the Society, and had held the office until his decease. "With an
enlightened mind, a devoted spirit 'of philanthropy, an earnest
zeal, a spotless Christian character, and independent means, he
had devoted the latter thirty years of his life to labors of public
benevolence and reform. Thomas Eddy was elected as his suc-
cessor in office, on the 1st of October.

The great increase in the number of pupils at School No. 3
rendered additional apartments necessary. A committee was
appointed, and, in December, a report was submitted, recom-
mending that a new building be erected on the lots granted by
Trinity Church, at the corner of Hudson and Grove streets. At
the same time, plans and estimates for the building were submit-
ted, the cost of which was named at $8,500. The recommenda-
tions of the committee were adopted.

The tenure of the ground, as granted by the corporation of
Trinity Church, did not secure it absolutely to the Society, and
at the following meeting the matter was reconsidered, and a com-
mittee, consisting of John R. Murray, William Torrey, and Ben-
jamin Clark, was appointed to consult with the vestry of Trinity
Church, to obtain the privileges desired. The conference result-
ed in a proposition that, if the Society would release a certain
portion of the property on Hudson street, the vestry would con-
vey the title of the remainder in fee-simple to the Society.
These terms were deemed favorable, and the committee were
directed to complete the arrangement. The negotiation was ter-
minated, however, by the payment of $1,250 on the part of the
Society, as the purchase-money for the whole of the lots.

At the first meeting in 1820, the committee to prepare the
manual reported that the British Lancasterian manual had been
adopted as the basis of their own, and that such corrections and
changes had been made as would adapt it to the use of the

42 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

schools of the Society. The report of the committee was ac-
cepted, and the manual adopted and ordered to be printed. The
work was accordingly done, and the first edition was published
the same year. A part of the edition was furnished with sam-
ples of sewing by the girls, which were attached to pages of the
book referred to in the text. The illustrated manuals bearing
these samples were sold for $1.50 each, while those from which
they were omitted were sold for 75 cents each. Charles C. An-
drews, the teacher of the Colored School, having contemplated
the publication of a manual, but having abandoned it in order
to aid the committee, was awarded 75 copies as a compliment-
ary consideration.

A committee was appointed early in the year to procure plans
and estimates for a building in Hudson street ; and after the
subject had been fully considered, it was decided to erect a two-
story building, 45 by 80 feet, with a cellar 7 feet in height, the
expense not to exceed $6,500. William Torrey, Najah Taylor,
and Samuel Boyd were appointed as the building committee.

The finance committee were authorized to borrow seven
thousand dollars, secured by bond and mortgage on the property
in Hudson street an arrangement which was effected with the
Mutual Insurance Company, at 7 per cent. At the close of the
year, the building committee were able to report their task com-
pleted, with a charge for extra work of $217.50, which caused
the total cost to exceed the estimates and appropriation only
$109.94. The house was opened for the boys on the 15th of
October, and for girls on the 23d of the same month. On the
2d of November, 279 girls had been entered on the register, un-
der the care of Sarah F. Field, who had been appointed teacher.

At the close of 1820, a period of fifteen years from the foun-
dation of the Society, the trustees were enabled to view their
enterprise with high gratification ; and at the date of the Six-
teenth Annual Report, in May, 1821, the following statement of
the schools in operation was published :

No. 1. Lloyd B. Windsor, teacher, 480 boys.

2. John Missing, " 353 boys and girls.

3. Shepherd Johnson, " 540 boys.
Sarah F. Field, " 289 girls.

4. Charles Picton, " 527 boys.
Eunice Dean, " 400 girls.

EEV. J NEWLAND MAFFIT. 4:3

The Society owned four commodious buildings, in which six
schools were held, attended by 2,589 pupils. The treasury was
in debt about $8,000.

At that time, Rev. John Newland Maffit, a young and very
popular preacher of the Methodist Church, was attracting much
attention by his remarkable oratory and powerful discourses.
He expressed a desire to visit and address the children of the
free schools ; and information having been communicated to
the board, an affirmative resolution was adopted, and Leonard
Bleecker and Thomas Eddy were appointed to make the neces-
sary arrangements. A young and talented preacher from Eng-
land, Rev. GEOKGE SUMMEBFIELD, was also in the city, and the
committee were authorized to make such appointments as they
deemed proper. The 17th day of May was chosen for the occa-
sion, and, to render a separate visit and address to each school
unnecessary, they were collected in the Baptist Church in Mul-
berry street, near Chatham, known as the " Tabernacle," then
under the care of Rev. ARCHIBALD MACLAY. Mr. Maffit was re-
ceived by sixteen of the trustees at No. 1, and, accompanied by
them, repaired to the place of assembly, where over 2,300 chil-
dren were in readiness to join in the exercises of the day. The
committee, in their report, remark as follows :

The minister commenced by reading the 10th chapter of Luke. He
then engaged in prayer for the blessing of God upon the exercises of the
day. After which he preached from Luke x. 42, " One thing is needful ; "
and the committee mention with much gratification that both the matter
and manner of his address were peculiarly adapted to engage the attention
and inform the minds of the children.

A similar privilege was soon after sought by Rev. THADDETIS
OSGOOD, a travelling English missionary ; but, in consequence of
the very brief time which had passed subsequent to Mr. Maffit's
address, the suggestion was not adopted by the board. Several
of the trustees, however, attended Mr. Osgood in his visits to
Nos. 3 and 4, where he addressed the children in an appropriate
manner.

The trustees, being desirous of reducing the expenses as
much as possible, directed the treasurer to procure a loan at six
per cent, on the property of No. 3, and pay off the mortgage to
the Mutual Insurance Company, which was at 7 per cent. This
was accomplished, and the first mortgage was cancelled.

44 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The principal measure which occupied the attention of the
board during the year 1821, was the division of No. 2, in Henry
street, into two separate schools, male and female, the two sexes
having been until that time admitted to the same school. This
was effected during the year, extensive repairs and alterations
being made, and on the 1st of November the girls' school was
opened with 90 scholars, under the care of Eebecca Leggett.

Two thousand copies of the " Universal Catechism " were pur-
chased for gratuitous distribution to the pupils belonging to the
schools ; a stereotype edition of the " Scripture Lessons " was
ordered to be prepared, and one thousand copies printed, for the
use of the several schools.

At the close of November, a delegation of members of the
Legislature visited several of the schools for the purpose of be-
coming more fully acquainted with the system of instruction
adopted by the Society. These visits were very satisfactory to
the delegates, who were cordial in their approbation of the
method of instruction, the buildings, and tlie various arrange-
ments of the institution. A committee, consisting of Benjamin
Clark, John R. Hurd, and William T. Slocum, was subsequently
appointed to draft a memorial to the Legislature, asking further
aid in the erection of additional buildings. The paper was pre-
pared and promptly submitted to the board, and Mr. Slocum
was appointed delegate to visit Albany and lay it before the
Legislature. The service was performed, but, in consequence of
a great variety of other measures being pressed upon the atten-
tion of the Legislature, an adjournment took place before the
object of the memorial was attained. It was deemed proper to
enlarge the delegation, and James Palmer and Najah Taylor
were selected for the purpose.

The trustees and agents of the Bethel Baptist Church were,
at this period (1821-1822), making diligent efforts to extend their
schools. As the bill which had been passed by the Legislature,
upon the appeal of the trustees and friends of the Bethel Church,
gave them special privileges not enjoyed by other religious de-
nominations, of which they were evidently disposed to avail
themselves to the fullest extent, by increasing the number of
their schools, and their pro rata of the school moneys, the Free-
School Society regarded the movement with much concern. The
measures contemplated by the Bethel Society led the board to

ADDITIONAL SCHOOL-TAX. 45

apprehend a collision upon ground which they had for some time
regarded with interest as a good location for a school that part
of the city north of Walker street and between Broadway and
the Bowery. A committee was accordingly appointed, in March,
1822, to select and negotiate for a site for a school building in
the vicinity of the cathedral in Mott street.

The estimates, obtained by careful inquiries throughout the
city, showed the unwelcome fact that many thousands of chil-
dren were still vagrants, and unprovided with the means of in-
struction. This condition of things arose partly from the dis-
abilities of the industrial classes in large cities, partially from
the fact that the number of schools was small, and insufficient to
accommodate the pupils ; while the great distances which many
of the children were obliged to walk in order to reach them,
offered a serious impediment to the attendance of the majority
of younger pupils. A considerable addition to the number of
schools was deemed, therefore, to be a prime necessity, and the
board took into consideration the means by which this could be
accomplished. At the meeting held on the 13th of March,
propositions were submitted and discussed, which were substan-
tially as follows :

To erect five new school-houses, at a cost of $10,000 each,
would require an annual sum of $5,000 for ten years, and would
provide for a new building every second year.

The population of the city at the time was 130,000, which, at
four cents per capita, would yield a tax of $5,200.

The real estate at the assessed valuation of the year amount-
ed to $50,619,720, the personal estate being assessed at
$17,666,350, making a total of $68,285,070. The sum derived
$5,000 would be only -^ of one per cent., or one cent on
$136 of the taxable property of the city.

The amount of taxes for 1821 was $299,225, which would be
increased only one sixtieth by the imposition of the proposed tax.
In the words of the proposition :

A person that now pays $1 tax would pay in addition If cents.

( Pj U (I U g <(

u u jo a u u KJ u

u (< u 20 " " " 32 "

Or, assessed upon real and personal estate, as follows :

46 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

A person assessed as worth. $100, in addition to his tax

would pay only cents.

-i " 1,000, " " " 7 "

In independent circumstances, 10,000, u " 75 "

A man of fortune, . . . 20,000, " " $1.50

The above estimates are interesting as historical facts in
reference to the city and its wealth, while the modest estimate of
$10,000 as making a man " independent," or ranking the owner
of $20,000 as a " man of fortune," is a genuine expression of the
social characteristics of that period.

To secure these additional resource?, the following plans were
recommended : 1. To circulate petitions among the peop^, until
several f onsand names should be obtained ; 2. When the peti-
tions were signed, to apply to the Corporation for its influence
and aid before the Legislature ; 3. To vest the title of all pur-
chases of property and school buildings erected by the Society in
the city, and to take a perpetual lease for the same ; 4. When
the mortgage upon the property of No. 3 should be paid by the
proceeds of the tax, to convey the title of the land to the city ;
5. That the Mayor, Recorder, and First Judge of the city and
comity should be ex-officio members of the Society ; 6. That in-
corporated religious societies should not draw school moneys for
any other schools except those immediately connected with their
respective churches ; 7. That no religious society should estab-
lish a free school, except for the children of their respective
churches who were unable to pay for education.

Without adopting definitely the measures proposed, the
board appointed a committee to take the whole subject io
charge, and for that purpose selected Robert C. Cornell, John E.
Hyde, Rensselaer Havens, Benjamin Clark, John Adams, Najah
Taylor, and Lindley Murray.

The committee gave prompt attention to the measures re-
ferred to them, and had interviews with the Mayor and several
members of the Corporation. It was decided to postpone the
movement until a later period in the year, and the committee,
ut their own request, were discharged, the secretary being direct-
ed, however, to lay the matter before the board two months pre-
vious to the next session of the Legislature.

The committee appointed to purchase lots for a new school
near the cathedral, reported that they had selected three lots in

BETHEL BAPTIST CHTJKCH. 47

Mott street, near Prince, 25 by 94 feet each, the price of which
was $2,250, and interest from the 1st of January preceding.
The lots were approved, and the necessary steps to have the
deeds executed were ordered to be taken, and the treasurer
directed to borrow the money for the payment.

At the meeting of the board held on the 5th of April, a let-
ter was received from the trustees of the Bethel Baptist Church,
complaining of the conduct of the Society in purchasing the
property for the erection of a school-house in Mott street, and
charging the board with an improper interference with their
plans. The secretary was directed to reply to this communica-
tion, anf 1 furnish the complainants with a copy of the original
resolution passed in 1821, appointing a committee to procure
suitable lots for a school site, and also to inform them of the
proceedings already taken by the board.

It was further resolved that a committee, consisting of John
E. Hyde, James Collins, and Lindley Murray, be appointed to
prepare a remonstrance to the Legislature on the subject of the
law giving exclusive privileges to the Bethel Church in the dis-
tribution of the school fund.

The collision of interests which had been anticipated between
these two boards had now assumed a positive form. The dis-
cussion gave rise to important subsequent legislation, and is
made the subject of review in the following chapter.

48 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTEE III.

THE BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH CONTROVERSY.

Sectarian Influence Church Schools The School Fund The Bethel Baptist Church
Privileges Granted School No. 5 Memorial to the Legislature Memorial to
the Corporation Proceedings in the Legislature Hiram Ketchum Elected a Trus-
tee, and requested to proceed to Albany Negotiations Between the Two Boards
of Trustees The Bill Laid Over by the Legislature The Bethel Schools The
" Trustees of the Fire-Department Fund " Certificate of Mr. Andrews Certifi-
cate of Mr. Buyce Certificate of Mr. Farden New Church Schools Proceed-
ings in the Common Council Memorial Adopted New Memorials to the Legisla-
ture Proceedings of the Legislature Report of the Committee on Colleges, &c.
Adjournment of the Legislature The Extra Session The Bill Amended The
Common Council to Apportion the School Fund The Bill Becomes a Law The
Controversy Closed.

THE Free-School Society had been in successful operation for
fifteen years, and had encountered no other obstacles than those
incident to the progress and development of a system of far-
reaching benevolence and philanthropy. A movement of a dis-
turbing character, however, arose from the rivalry and jealousy
of other institutions, but particularly in the efforts made to ob-
tain peculiar privileges for the benefit of the schools connected
with the Bethel Baptist Church. The controversy and the legis-
lation growing out of these attempts form an interesting feature
in the records of the Society.

By the law of March 12, 1813, it was directed that the por-
tion of the school fund received by the city and county of New
York should be apportioned and paid to the trustees of the Free-
School Society of New York, the trustees or treasurers of the
Orphan Asylum Society, the Society of the Economical School,
the African Free School, and of such incorporated religious
societies in the city as supported, or should establish, charity
schools, who might apply for the same. In 1822, the institutions
which drew from the school fund in addition to the Free-School

BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH. 49

Society, and those already named, were the Female Association,
the Hamilton Free School, the Mechanics' Society, and the Ro-
man Catholic Benevolent Society. By the sixth section of the
law, the several societies therein named were prohibited from
using the school fund for any other purpose than the payment
of teachers.

The privilege of participating in. the fund granted by the
law to religious societies was peculiar to the city of New York,
no religious society in any other part of the State being allowed
such participation. This privilege was probably granted them
at the time, because the number of schools under the charge of
these societies was small, and, with a single exception, confined
to the education of the poor of the respective churches to which
they were attached.

The Lancasterian system of education having been success-
fully practised for a number of years in the schools of the Soci-
ety, the number of pupils increased to such an extent, that the
amount drawn from the common school fund was more than
sufficient for the payment of teachers employed. Application
was therefore made to the Legislature, which, in 1817, passed an
act containing, among other things, a provision allowing. the
Free-School Society to appropriate the surplus of the school
fund, after the payment of teachers, to the erection of buildings
for schools, the education of schoolmasters upon the Lancasterian
plan, and to all the needful purposes of a common school edu-
cation. This peculiar privilege was granted the Society because
it was organized for the sole and exclusive purpose of educating
the poor ; and, consequently, all the buildings which it should
erect would forever be devoted to this object.

In 1820, the trustees of the Bethel Baptist Church in the
city of New York opened a school in the basement of their
church, in Delancey street, for the reception of poor children of
every denomination ; and, the next year, received an apportion-
ment from the common school fund, under the provision of the
law of 1813, granting that privilege to religious societies. In
1822, the trustees of the Bethel Church obtained the passage of
a law * granting them permission to appropriate the surplus

* An Act for the Relief of the Trustees of the Bethel Baptist Church, in the
city of New York.

I. Be it enacted by the People of the State of New York, represented in Senate
4

50 THE PUBLIC SCIIOOL SOCIETY.

money received from the school fund, after the payment of
teachers, to the erection of buildings for schools, the education
of schoolmasters, and all the other needful purposes of a com-
mon school education a privilege nearly similar to that before
granted to the Free-School Society. The passage of this law
immediately excited the alarm of the board, and several re-
ligious societies in the city. It was perceived that it opened a
wide door for the perversion of the fund, and that there would
be a strong inducement offered to the church for the employ-
ment of teachers who would work cheap, that thus there might
be a surplus to be used in the erection of buildings, which would
not belong to the public, but to the church, and would probably
come to be used for other purposes than the education of poor
children.

It has already been stated, that the trustees of the Public-
School Society, as early as 1821, had observed the want of a
school in that part of the city bounded by Broadway and the
Bowery, and Bleecker and Grand streets, and had made some
inquiries for the purchase of lots for a school site, which had
been unsuccessful, and the effort was abandoned for the time.
The passage of the law above named revived then* interest in
this locality, which was stimulated by the efforts making on the
part of Mr. Chase, the pastor of the church, to find a field for a

and Assembly, That it shall and may be lawful for the trustees of the Bethel Baptist
Church, in the city of New York, or their successors in office, at any time hereafter to
sell and d.ispose of two lots of ground, with the meeting-house thereon, now belonging
to the said church, situate on the south side of Broome street, in the Eighth Ward of
the said city, and to execute conveyances therefor in fee-simple to the purchaser or
purchasers thereof.

II. And he it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for the said trustees,
or their successors in office, to mortgage, in fee or otherwise, all those certain lots of
ground, and the meeting-house thereon erected, belonging to the said church, situate
at the corner of Delancey and Chrystie streets, in the said city, or any part or parcel
thereof, for such sum or sums as the said trustees, or their successors in office, shall
think proper ; which mortgage or mortgages so made and executed shall be valid
and effectual in the law.

III. And be it further enacted, That if any moneys be now remaining, or shall
hereafter remain, in the hands of the said trustees, from the school moneys received
by them for the support of the Bethel Free School, after a sufficient compensation to
the teachers employed by them, it shall and may be lawful for them to apply such
moneys to the instruction of schoolmasters, to the erection of buildings for schools,
and to all other needful purposes of a common school education, but to no other pur-
pose whatever.

BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH. 51

new school under his supervision. A consideration of the mat-
ter was therefore had at a meeting on the 13th of March, 1822,
when a resolution was adopted directing the purchase of lots in
the vicinity of St. Patrick's cathedral, and appointing Isaac
Collins, Rensselaer Havens, William T. Slocum, John L. Bowne,
and James Palmer a committee to superintend the undertaking,
and to procure estimates for the erection of a building.

At a meeting held on the 5th of April, a letter was received
from the trustees of the Bethel Baptist Free School, stating that
they had purchased lots in the vicinity of the Roman Catholic
cathedral, and making a complaint that the purchase of lots in
Mott street by the Free-School Society was an improper interfer-
ence with their plans. A reply was directed to be sent to the
complainants, and a committee of three, consisting of John E.
Hyde, Isaac Collins, and Lindley Murray, was appointed to pre-
pare a memorial and remonstrance to the Legislature on the sub-
ject of the late law.

On the 2d of August, the trustees adopted the following
resolutions :

Resolved, That, in the opinion of this board, the last section of the act
of the Legislature of this State, entitled "An Act for the Relief of the
trustees of the Bethel Baptist Church, in the city of New York," passed on
the 8th day of February last past, is calculated to divert a large portion of
the common school fund from the great and beneficial object for which it
is established, and to apply the same for the promotion of private and sec-
tarian interests ; and, believing that the passing of said section was pro-
cured either from the want of information, or from some other cause not
known to this board, they will use all the means in their power to procure
a repeal of the last clause of said law.

Resolved, That the secretary send a copy of the preceding resolution to
the trustees of the Bethel Free School.

At the following meeting of the board, a committee was ap-
pointed to confer with the Corporation, the commissioners of
the school fund, and the directors of the various institutions
entitled to participate in the school moneys, to secure their co-
operation in procuring the repeal of the law, and to prepare a
memorial to be presented to the Legislature. The committee
consisted of Charles G. Haines, John E. Hyde, Isaac Collins,
Gideon Lee, and Rensselaer Havens.

At the meeting held on the 6th of December, the committee

52 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

reported the following memorial, which was adopted, and ordered
to be printed under the direction of the committee :

To ihe Honorable the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York :

The trustees of the Free-School Society of New York respectfully rep-
resent, that they consider the prosperity of the institution, whose manage-
ment is entrusted to their charge, as intimately connected with the moral
condition of this metropolis. In all populous cities, there must be a great
disparity in the pecuniary circumstances of the different classes of the com-
munity. A large portion of the people must be indigent and needy. Thou-
sands of the rising generation must be emerging into active life, whose
parents are unable to give them the rudiments of literary education, and
whose minds have never been enlightened or restrained by the early incul-
cation of moral lessons and virtuous maxims. Unless some public establish-
ment, or some voluntary association, embrace and relieve their condition, it
must be evident that they will be exposed to temptations of the most per-
nicious kind, and contract habits of the most dangerous tendency. They
will swell the list of crimes on the records of criminal courts, fill the peni-
tentiaries with convicts, and subsist by committing depredations on the
property of their fellow-citizens, and disturb the peace and safety of the
whole community. They diminish the security of civil government, in-
crease poverty and taxation, and promote the passage of severe and sangui-
nary laws.

To rescue such children from the dangers which naturally surround them,
to shield them from temptation and early depravity, to direct their paths to
future usefulness and respectability, is the grand object of the Free-School
Society of New York.

When these free schools were established in 1806, there was a large
number of poor children in the city of New York exposed to the most dan-
gerous temptations, and whose minds were destitute of mental and moral
cultivation. They were wandering in the streets in idleness, and daily fall-
ing into new and pernicious associations. They were growing up in a man-
ner that prepared them for the almshouse, the hospital, the Bridewell, the
penitentiary, and State prison. Since their commencement, more than four-
teen thousand children have been admitted and entered on their registers,
and but one solitary individual of this large number has been pointed out
who has been arraigned in a criminal court.

The number daily instructed is now more than three thousand. It is
almost unnecessary to dwell on the salutary effects of these schools. When
we reflect that all free governments must rest on public opinion, and that, in
proportion as public opinion is enlightened and the people rendered virtu-
ous, popular institutions will be rendered more permanent and secure, the
diffusion of elementary instruction, and the timely inculcation of correct
principles of moral conduct, assume a consideration that must appeal to the
feelings of every member of this community who regards his own happi-
ness, the happiness of society generally, and the well-being of posterity.

No system of education has ever yet been devised that affords so many

MEMORIAL TO THE LEGISLATURE. 53

advantages as the Lancasterian plan. This was adopted by the Free-School
Society of New York before it was embraced by any other State in the
Union ; and, whether we consider the economy of instruction, the facility
with which children acquire the rudiments of education, or the excellency
of the discipline which prevails, it stands without competition.

The free schools under our care are open to all religious denominations.
No distinction of sect or name is known in admitting scholars. The gov-
ernment of the State, in a spirit of wisdom and munificence, has made a
liberal annual allowance toward sustaining the expenses of their educa-
tion ; and if our income exceeds the expenditures, the surplus is appropri-
ated toward erecting buildings for schools, which are the property of the
public, for the perpetual reception of indigent children. Five houses have
already been constructed, principally by the aid of private donations, in the
different parts of the city of New York. They constitute a real estate
which will be held in perpetuity for the benefit of the lower classes of the
community, and which may be estimated at the value of sixty thousand
dollars.

Your memorialists would further represent, that, with one exception, the
different religious denominations of the city of New York who receive a
portion of the common school fund, expend it in the education of 'poor
children of their respective' societies only.

Your memorialists are fully convinced of the wisdom of that provision
of the general law regulating the expenditures of the common school fund,
which limits the appropriation of said fund to the payment of teachers
only ; and they believe it inexpedient, and contrary to the original intention
of the Legislature, that any part thereof should be applied to the erection
of buildings, except in case of an institution expressly incorporated for pur-
poses of educating poor children, and where real estate virtually becomes
the property of the public.

But your memorialists regret to say, that a law was passed during the
last session of the Legislature, which, they apprehend, may lead to incalcu-
lable evils, and produce consequences never contemplated at the period of
its adoption. This statute is entitled, " An Act to relieve the Baptist
Bethel Church in the city of New York," and it contains the following sec-
tion : " And le it further enacted, That, if any moneys be now remaining, or
shall hereafter remain, in the hands of the said trustees (naming the trus-
tees of the said church) from the school moneys received by them for the
support of the Bethel Free School, after a sufficient compensation to the
teachers employed by them, it shall and may be lawful for them to apply
such moneys to the instruction of schoolmasters, to the erection of build-
ings for schools, and to all other needful purposes of a common school edu-
cation, but to no other purposes whatever." (Vide " Laws of New York,"
1822, p. 22.)

As the sum drawn from the common school fund for each scholar is
more than is requisite to pay the salaries of teachers on the Lancasterian
plan of education, where the number of scholars is large, a very consider-
able surplus may remain. This surplus may, by said law, be devoted, in

54 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the opinion of your memorialists, to the purchase of real estate, or to the
erection of buildings, which belong not to the public not, in fact, to the
poor of the city of New York, but to the Baptist Bethel Church. In this
religious society the fee will permanently vest, and the estate and property
thus created may be sold, and the fee conveyed to others. There is no limit
to the number of scholars which may be instructed under the direction of
this church, and the sum drawn from the commissioners of the school fund
must conform to the returns made to them by this religious denomination.
Teachers may be employed at low salaries, to increase this .surplus, who aro
incompetent to the faithful discharge of their duty ; and there is nothing to
prevent the conversion of the moneys drawn by the trustees of this church
to the education of children who do not belong to that needy class of schol-
ars who should be peculiar objects of instruction in the expenditure of the
school fund in this city.

Your memorialists would respectfully ask, if this ever could have been
the intention of the Legislature ? Why has a right been given to one re-
ligious society which is not imparted to another ? And why has a privilege
been granted that not only vitiates the principles of equality, but perverts a
part of the school fund intended and wisely and humanely intended to
be expended to the last cent in the wholesome education of poor children ?
When other religious denominations are compelled by law to exhaust all the
funds which come into their hands for the purposes of instruction, is it poli-
tic, is it just, to select out one religious society, and give it an opportunity
to dispose of the funds here spoken of, for other purposes than those con-
nected with the early education of the poor ?

Your memorialists have but one object in view the adoption of the
most prudent and effectual means of educating the poor children of the city
of New York. Whether this is done by this Free-School Society, or by
other means, is not a matter of concern to them ; but when they see the ex-
istence of a law which, in their view, appears calculated to retard the great
work of elementary instruction which has a tendency to pervert a portion
of the school fund from its proper object which may diminish the num-
ber of poor children annually educated, and which may create a spirit of
hostility heretofore unknown among the different religious denominations,
and is unequal as well as pernicious, they conceive that a regard to their
duty, and a sincere desire to increase the blessings of elementary instruction,
dictates an appeal to the Legislature. Suppose that every Christian society
in the city of New York was empowered to expend a portion of its divi-
dend, drawn from the commissionerrs of the school fund, in objects differ-
ent from that of educating poor children, would not the Legislature con-
sider such an evil called for prompt and complete correction ? Why, then,
shall the guardians of our public prosperity permit a law to exist which
sets an example that may lead to such a grievance ? Have not the different
religious denominations of this metropolis a perfect right to call on the
Legislature for a law giving them authority to expend their surplus funds
as they may think proper, or to erect buildings which may in time be con-
verted into houses for sectarian uses, instead of being maintained as school
edifices ?

MEMOKIAL TO THE CORPORATION. 55

Under these considerations, your memorialists respectfully request the
Legislature to repeal the third section of the law which haa been here re-
ferred to. They conceive that its being expunged from the Statute Book
will seriously benefit the great interests of early education in the city of
New York, and place the different religious societies on the broad basis of
equality.

About three years ago, the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in
the City of New York made an annual report, in which it was stated, among
other things, that there were about eight thousand poor children in this
metropolis who were growing up destitute of instruction. This fact, and
others of a similar nature, induced this Free-School Society to make bolder
efforts to spread the lights of early knowledge. They have very recently
erected two school-houses, in different sections of the city, in the midst of
the most indigent portions of our population, capable of receiving one
thousand scholars each, and by this means incurred a debt of sixteen thou-
sand dollars.

Your memorialists deem it proper to state, that the Free-School Society
of New York is composed of more than six hundred of the most respect-
able citizens, and that religious distinctions are unknown to their constitu-
tion. For fourteen years they have prosecuted the grand design of their
institution with ardor and success. They have contracted debts and in-
curred heavy responsibilities on many occasions.

The Free-School Society of New York was created by the Legislature to
exercise a wholesome supervision over the education of children who could
look to no other certain, source. This institution was the offspring of your
honorable body, and to you it has to look for continuance and support. In
seeking the repeal of a law which must have been passed without a compre-
hensive view of its effects and bearings, they trust that they shall not be
accused of departing from that uniform desire to increase the blessings of a
free and enlightened government which has ever controlled their action and
guided their efforts.

Signed by order and on behalf of the Board of Trustees.

LEONAKD BLEECKER, Vice-President.
LTNDLET MTJKKAY, Secretary.

NEW YOBK, January, 1823.

The committee also reported the following memorial to the
Corporation, which was adopted, and referred to the same com-
mittee to present to that body :

To Ms Honor the Mayor, Recorder, and Commonalty of the City of New York :
The trustees of the New York Free-School Society would respectfully
represent, that they consider the diffusion of early education in the city of
New York as intimately connected with the moral condition and future
prosperity of this metropolis. If we would lessen taxes, by preventing pau-
perism if we would lessen public burdens, by diminishing crimes and
offences if we would render the city more wealthy, by increasing individ-

56 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ual exertion and enterprise if we would give greater peace and security to
our citizens, and render property more sacred if we would give a broader
basis and render firmer the foundation of our political and civil institutions,
we shall oncourage early education among the poor, inculcate virtuous max-
ima in the young mind as its powers are unfolded, and teach the principles
of self-respect. Industry, sobriety, enterprise, and usefulness will follow.

History is the censor of ages. It teaches us that, in proportion as man-
kind assemble and reside in large bodies, that the distinctions of rich and
poor are made more obvious that they reciprocate baneful as well as virtu-
ous sympathies. The poor, the depraved, and the desperate mingle togeth-
er, and a standing corps of the base and the profligate will appear.

Idleness and want will stimulate the base propensities of our nature, and
crimes and outrages will follow. Hence, whatever counteracts those evils
which naturally arise in populous cities, should be embraced with ardor and
cultivated with perseverance. And hence the necessity of a greater atten-
tion to the sources and causes of criminality and guilt.

Your memorialists would call the attention of your honorable body to
what has already been effected by the Free-School Society of New York.
They lay before you a memorial which has been prepared for the Legislature
of this State, and also their last annual report. And, in doing this, they
respectfully solicit your aid in obtaining the repeal of a law which they can-
not but think is directly calculated to injure the interests of early education
in this metropolis. In their view, the third section of the law to which they
allude, and a copy of which is laid before your honorable board, tends to
create irregularity among different religious denominations, to pervert a por-
tion of the school fund to objects that may be foreign to the purposes of
early education, and diminish the number of children which might be daily
instructed.

Should these views be deemed correct by your honorable body, it is
hoped that you will present such a memorial to the Legislature as will tend
to produce a repeal of that portion of the statute to which reference has
been made.

NEW YORK, December, 1822.

The memorials were adopted, and Charles G. Haines, Samuel
Boyd, John E. Hyde, and Isaac Collins were appointed a com-
mittee to correspond with the Secretary of State as Commission-
er of the school fund, and to confer with the New York city
delegation to the Legislature, relative to the object contemplated
in the memorial. It being deemed of importance that the mem-
bers of the public bodies whose action was to decide the ques-
tion should have the opportunity of inspecting the schools, the
Committee were directed to invite the members of the Corpora-
tion and of the Legislature to visit the schools under the care of
the Society.

HIKAM KETCHTTM. 57

On the 24th of January, 1823, a special meeting of the trus-
tees was held, on the call of the Vice-President, to take into
consideration a letter which had been received from Hon. J. B.
Yates, relative to the memorial, in which he submitted his rea-
sons for a stay of proceedings in the Legislature on the part of
the Free-School Society. After some discussion on the commu-
nication, it was determined to press the matter upon the Legisla-
ture, and Isaac Collins and Israel Dean were appointed as a
committee to proceed to Albany, to represent the interests of the
Society before that body.

On the 18th of February following, another special meeting
was called for the purpose of promoting the objects so earnestly
desired, and to appoint another delegate from the board, who
should proceed to Albany to advocate the repeal of the " third
section." The committee on the memorial reported that the
Corporation had, at their meeting on the evening previous,
directed a memorial to be prepared and forwarded, praying for
the same object.

The resignation of Thomas Gibbons as a member of the
board was presented and accepted, and HIRAM KETCHUM, Esq.,
was unanimously elected as trustee to fill the vacancy. It was
then resolved, that Hiram Ketchum be authorized and requested
to proceed to Albany, to represent the interests of the institution
before the Legislature.

At the meeting of the board on the 1st of March, a propo-
sition to purchase the Baptist school-house was discussed and
finally negatived, and the committee were directed to press the
application at Albany, without reference to the contingencies
which might arise in reference to the property held by the Bethel
Baptist Church for school purposes.

Mr. Ketchum was, during this time, zealously engaged in
Albany in the discharge of his duties ; and on the 7th of March,
a letter was received from him and laid before the board, com-
municating the fact that the committee to whom the question of
the school law had been referred, had decided that, whereas a
resolution had passed the House calling for information at the
next session of the Legislature, relative to all the free schools
in the city of New York, it was inexpedient to legislate further
at that session on the subject of the Bethel Baptist schools. In
consequence of this decision, the several committees on memo-

58 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

rials and the delegates to Albany were discharged by a vote on
the 4th of April.

In anticipation of the necessary action at the ensuing session
of the Legislature, the Board of Trustees, at a meeting held on
the 4th of July, appointed a new committee, consisting of Isaac
Collins, Hiram Ketchum, Eobert C. Cornell, and Lindley Mur-
ray, to* prepare an address to the public, explaining the position
assumed by the Free-School Society, which was subsequently
submitted, approved, and ordered to be printed. At the meet-
ing of the board on the 2d of January, 1824, a committee was
appointed to draft a Bill, to be submitted to the Legislature,
which should operate as a general law relative to the distribution
of the school fund in the city of New York. The committee
consisted of Benjamin Clark, Hiram Ketchum, Samuel Boyd,
and Lindley Murray.

The pamphlet containing the address of the trustees to the
public, with other matters, excited the attention of the trustees
of the Bethel School, who solicited a conference between com-
mittees of the two boards. A committee was accordingly
named, and, on the 6th of February, they reported the perform-
ance of the service assigned to them, and that several propo-
sitions had been suggested as the basis of an adjustment. The
result of the interview with Mr. Chase, the pastor, was submit-
ted, as follows : The trustees of the Bethel School were to close
their No. 3, and transfer the children to Free School No. 3, the
Society to take the new building from the Bethel Church on a
long lease, they to continue their No. 1 only ; the whole condi-
tioned on the passage of the law repealing the " third section."
B. Clark, R. C. Cornell, and Lindley Murray were empowered
to make the proposed terms of adjustment as free from error as
possible, and to complete the negotiation with the other institu-
tion. This committee subsequently reported that they had been
entirely unable to effect any arrangement whatever.

Notwithstanding the unanimity of sentiment in favor of the
repeal of the objectionable section of the law, and the numerous
memorials which had been presented, the agents of the Bethel
Schoo.1 had been able to exert a strong influence in the House,
where, in consequence of .the absence of facts and the lateness
of the session, the subject, as already stated, was never reached.
A resolution, however, had been adopted, calling for information

BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH. 59

from the several societies and asylums to which the money was
distributed ; and the compilation of these facts occupied a por-
tion of the recess between the sessions.

The Bethel Baptist Church had, at the time, three schools in
operation : one situated in Delancey street, in the basement of
the church, one in Bleecker street, and one in Vaiidam street, in
the basement of a Baptist church. The first of these schools, in
Delancey street, was opened in 1820, and in the year 1821, the
trustees of the church drew from the common school fund the
sum of $1,545.39 for 686 scholars alleged to have been taught
therein in the year preceding the 1st of May in the last-men-
tioned year ; and on the 1st of May, 1822, the sum of $1,479.80
for 755 scholars; and -in the year 1823, $1,986.04 for 1,211
scholars.

The nineteenth annual report of the Free-School Society
presents an interesting review of the proceedings in the contro-
versy up to the date of the report, which is substantially em-
bodied in the following extracts :

After the passage of the law granting the peculiar privilege of applying
the surplus to the erection of buildings, &c., the pastor of the. Bethel Bap-
tist Church, the Rev. Johnson Chase, applied to his trustees, requesting them
to erect a building for a school in Elizabeth street. To this proposition the
trustees were at first much opposed, it not comporting with their original
design to have more than one school, which they thought they should be
able to manage to advantage. Their pastor, however, was very earnest in
his solicitations, and, to overcome all objections on account of the pecuniary
embarrassments into which the erection of another building might involve
the church, undertook to encounter all the expenses himself ; accordingly,
to gratify their pastor, and contrary to their own opinions of the propriety
of the measure, they yielded their assent to it, and lots were purchased and
a building commenced in the summer of 1822. The site of this building
was in the immediate vicinity of the place where the trustees of the Free-
School Society had for some time previously contemplated the erection of
anothe'r school-house, and where they have since erected Free School No. 5
a commodious building, and sufficiently ample to accommodate all the
poor children in the part of the town where it is situated. Mr. Chase was
advised of the intentions of the trustees of the Free-School Society as to
the erection of this building, and the building itself was actually erected,
though not finished, before he commenced his building in Elizabeth street ;
and, after he had commenced it, an individual member of the board of
trustees offered to purchase his lots of ground, and remunerate him for all
the expenses to which he had been subjected. This proposition was made,
as it was conceived there would be no necessity for two free schools in the

60 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

same neighborhood, and that the operations of the two, if established, must
necessarily interfere with each other. The proposition was not, however,
acceded to, and the building of the Bethel Baptist Church and Free-School
No. 5 were prepared for the reception of scholars about the same time. One
part of the building of the Bethel Baptist Church in Elizabeth street is now
appropriated to a school-house, and the other part is used by a religious
society as a place of worship. In the autumn of 1823, the trustees of the
Bethel Baptist Church opened their school No. 3, in Vandani street, in the
vicinity of Free-School No. 3. The immediate effect of this new school was
to draw from Free-School No. 3 three hundred children. Many of the chil-
dren thus withdrawn returned soon afterward to the school under the care
of the Society.

The experience of the operations of the Bethel Baptist schools had
fully justified the apprehensions formed of them by the board. From the
document with which the trustees have been furnished, it appears that the
teachers in these schools have been employed at low salaries, have labored
under great disadvantages, and that the order and improvement of the
schools have been by no means commendable.

On the 9th of March last, Jacob Drake, Esq., one of the commissioners
of the school fund, and Jacob B. Taylor, Esq., one of the aldermen of the
city, visited the schools of the Bethel Baptist Church, and a number of the
free schools, with a view to ascertain their condition and comparative mer-
its. The certificates of these gentlemen set forth that a want of cleanliness,
order, and discipline in the Bethel schools was very manifest, together with
the following extraordinary facts : There were on the register of School No.
3 of the Bethel Baptist Church, 450 scholars, when, in fact, 300 only could
be seated in the school. It will be recollected that the trustees draw from
the common school fund a certain amount per scholar, for the number of
scholars on register. On the day when these gentlemen visited them, there
were on register, in all the schools of the Bethel Baptist Church, 1,547 schol-
ars, of whom were present only 886. Stephen Allen, Esq., and John Targee,
Esq., consented to visit the schools on another day ; and they have been
pleased to give their certificate. This certificate shows similar results as to
the condition of the schools, the number of scholars on register and in at-
tendance, as that of Mr. Drake and Alderman Taylor. The trustees also
obtained a certificate from a committee of the Fire Department, as follows :

To the Trustees of the New York Free-School Society :

The undersigned, a committee from the " Trustees of the Fire Depart-
ment Fund," in answer to the queries of some of your body relative to the
Bethel schools in this city, reply : That there are now under our care over
three hundred children, most of which are in the schools under your charge
the residue at the Bethel schools. At the former, they improve rapidly in
learning, and give the strongest evidence of the good management of the
institution. At the latter, it is the reverse. We are not, of course, satisfied
with having children there, and shall consider it our duty to remove them,
or discontinue our patronage, when parents refuse to do so. We have, there-
fore, no hesitation in expressing it as our opinion, that public good requires
the discontinuance of the State grant to the Bethel schools, as the course

BETHEL BAPTIST CHUKCH. 61

pursued by their managers, in having teachers who are incompetent, and
rendering their schools instruments for. the furtherance of the views of a
particular religious society, are calculated to subvert the intention of the
State in the endowment of common schools.

Our opinions are formed from personal visits to both schools, and from
the reports of our School Committee, who visit every three months and
examine into the progess of the children claiming protection from our insti-
tution.

P. W. ENGS,

EDWARD ARROWSMITH,

JAMES M. TUTHELL, ! Committee.

WILLIAM VONCK,

J. M. HOYT,

NKW YORK, 16th March, 1824.

From the certificate of Mr. Andrews,* it appears that Mr. Chase has

* CERTIFICATE OF CHARLES C. ANDREWS. I, Charles C. Andrews, of the city of
New York, teacher, and late a trustee of the Bethel Free-School in said city, state as
follows : That, when it was proposed by the Rev. Johnson Chase to establish a free
school in the basement of the meeting-house of the Bethel Baptist Church in Delancey
street, for the purpose of educating poor children connected with the congregation,
and others in the neighborhood of the meeting-house, I readily assented to aid in so
good a work, and offered my advice, as a teacher on the Lancasterian plan, in the pro-
motion of a school to be conducted on that system. A board of trustees being
appointed, and the rooms being fitted up, a school was opened accordingly, on the
plan above named. Subsequently, Mr. Johnson Chase, having obtained a special act
from the Legislature respecting the surplus funds of the said school, proposed to buy
lots and erect a large school-house in Elizabeth street. This proposition was objected
to by all the trustees as departing from the original plan, and as calculated to involve
the church in difficulties which she was unable to sustain, and so greatly to increase
the duties of the board, that a second school could not properly be attended to on
their part. However, after several attempts to obtain the consent of the board, even
with the offer of said Chase to build a school-house on his own account and credit, his
proposals were accepted. A school-house was built and a school opened, contrary to
my views and advice frequently expressed to Mr. Chase. My reasons were in accord-
ance with those of each member of the board, which I had frequently an opportunity
of hearing expressed by them individually ; and I am under the impression that it was
principally owing to the influence possessed by Mr. Chase, as pastor of the church,
that his object in this respect was obtained.

The reasons for not agreeing to the establishing a second school on the part of the
board have already been given ; in addition to which, my own reasons were, that there
would be no necessity for such school, as the Trustees of the Free-School Society con-
templated building in the vicinity of the intended Bethel School, and I concluded that
it would create a strife, far from being desirable or useful, between the two institu-
tions ; nor did I consider that the Bethel Board, from it's infant state, possessed suffi.
cient experience on such subjects to undertake a task so new and so arduous as a
second school must necessarily impose ; while, on the part of the New York Free.
School Trustees, there existed all the requisite means and qualifications, to carry into
full effect the purposes designed by the establishment of such schools.

Within a few months, Mr. Chase proposed to the Bethel Board to open another

62 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

been the active manager in the Board of Trustees of the Bethel Baptist
Church ; his conduct as a trustee of public funds will be shown by the fol-
lowing facts :

It appears that Mr. John Buyce was the first teacher employed in the
Bethel Baptist Free-School in Delancey street; he was employed in 1820,
and continued till 1821. At this time the trustees of the church were not

free school in Vandam street, in the neighborhood of a large school long established
by the New York Free-School Society of this city. To this measure I also objected ;
nor was there a member of the board, to my knowledge, friendly to the measure ; but
the same partial feeling toward Mr. Chase, which, I conceive, brought the second
school into existence, brought the third also, so far as it relates to the consent of the
board. When it was proposed to employ the person having charge of the last-men-
tioned school as teacher, it never met my approbation, nor do I consider it a judicious
appointment.

The Bethel Board, considering it necessary that much time should be spent in visit-
ing their schools, and that their several occupations would preclude them from per-
forming that duty, engaged me to pay weekly visits to the schools, and to superintend
the literary concerns of the same ; for which services the Board thought proper to
compensate me ; but from the views I have already expressed, and which I have had
ever since the second school was established, together with a persuasion that the male
teachers have never been so compensated as to induce them to maintain a reputation
equal to other similar institutions, and knowing that men so situated merely remain in
such employ to subsist while they are anxiously looking for more favorable opportuni-
ties, never can feel that energy which is absolutely necessary in teachers of well-con-
ducted Luncasterian schools ; finding, also, that this state of things was intended to
continue notwithstanding the discouragement manifested by teachers, arising from
their vain attempt to procure an increase of pay ; and considering, also, that I was
employed by gentlemen who viewed the operations of the Bethel Board in an unfavor-
able light, I considered it my duty to relinquish my membership with the said Bethel
Board, and to resign the superintendentship of the schools under their care.

In relation to the comparative state of the Bethel Free Schools, and those under
the care of the New York Free-School Society, it may be sufficient to remark, that the
teachers of the Bethel Schools, Nos. 1 and 2, were both taught the Lancasterian sys-
tem in the school under my care ; and considering the shortness of the time in which
they have been engaged on the plan, they have shoVn themselves worthy of encour-
agement ; and if they had advantages similar to the teachers of the schools belonging
to the Free-School Society, more good than now does, in my opinion, would result
from their labors ; but while the teacher of Bethel School No. 1 has to conduct a
school on a system requiring uniformity in the various exercises, in a room in which it
is not practicable to observe it, and the teacher of No. 2 has to contend with the pres-
sure which an insufficient income occasions, evident disadvantages appear in these two
schools, when contrasted with those of the New York Free-School Society.

The salaries of the Bethel School teachers are as follows :

School No. 1, A. R. Martin, teacher, . . . $500 per annum.
No. 2, Thos. Fardon, "... 400 "

No. 3, John Missing, " ... 350 "

The teachers of other Lancasterian Schools in New York receive from $600 to $800
and $1,000 per annum.- CHARLES C. ANDREWS.

March II, 1824.

BETHEL BAPTIST CHUBOH. 63

permitted to draw from the school fund more than sufficient to pay the sal-
ary of their teacher ; the privilege not having been granted them of appro-
priating the surplus. Mr. Chase asserts that Mr. Buyce was employed at a
salary of $900 per annum ; Mr. Buyce alleges that he was employed at a sal-
ary of $450 per annum ; * and that, by the request of Johnson Chase, he
took a draft on the treasury of the church for $900, with a private under-
standing with Mr. Chase that he was actually to receive only $450. It will
be perceived that, by the operation resorted to by Mr. Chase, the vouchers
of the treasurer would show that $900 of the public funds went to the pay-
ment of the teacher, when, in fact, one half of that sum remained in the
treasury of the church. After the passage of the law allowing the church
to use the school fund in the erection of buildings, Mr. Chase employed a
teacher at $500 per annum. It also appears, by the certificate of Mr. Thomas
Fardon,f a teacher of Bethel Free-School No. 2, that, previously to the de-
parture of Mr. Chase for Albany, during the session of the Legislature of
1823, this gentleman proposed to Mr. Fardon to present a proposition to the
board of trustees of the church to give him $600 salary, on condition that
he should return $200 as a donation. The object of this certifiate was,
probably, to show that Mr. Chase did not employ teachers at low salaries,
and, consequently, had no surplus for buildings.

The operation of the Bethel schools upon those of the So-
ciety were twofold. In the first place, they drew away pupils
from the free schools, and diminished their revenue ; and, in the
second place, by absorbing so large a share of the school money,
the balance to be distributed among the other institutions was

* CERTIFICATE OF JOHN BUYCE. I, John Buyce, of the city of New York, do
certify and declare, that I was employed by Johnson Chase as teacher of the Bethel
Free-School No. 1, in the basement of the Baptist meeting-house at the corner of De-
lancey street and Chrystie street, for, the years 1820 and 1821, at a salary of about
450 dollars per year. I further certify, that, at the request of the said Johnson Chase,
I took a draft on the treasurer of said school for 900 dollars, with the private under-
standing between myself and said Johnson Chase that I was really to receive but about
450 dollars, and I believe said Johnson Chase knew I was paid but about 450 dollars.

JOHN BUTCK.

NEW YORK, April 1st, 1824.

\ CERTIFICATE OF THOMAS FARDON, I hereby certify, that, in consideration of fre-
quent extra services rendered the Bethel Free-School establishment, Mr. Chase prom-
ised to present me 50 dollars in addition to my salary of 350. Also, that, previous to
his departure to Albany at the last session of the Legislature, he desired to present a
proposition to the board to give me 600 dollars per annum, on condition that I should
return 200 as a donation, considering such a contract injudicious and unnecessary.
However, being frequently entreated, and hoping to secure the 50 dollars (which, I
feared, I should not receive as a present), I acceded, and proposed committing it to
writing ; thus it remains a verbal contract between Mr. Chase and myself.

THOMAS FARDON, Teacher of Bethel Free School No. 2.

NEW YOEK, March Zllh, 1824.

64 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

materially diminished. But other mischiefs were in the imme-
diate future. Several religious denominations, observing the
special privileges thus enjoyed by one of their number, mani-
fested a disposition to follow the example, by enlarging their
schools, and adapting them to the wants of the public by receiv-
ing children of all denominations. A school of this description
was opened in Grace Church ; another, for female children, by
the Congregational Church in Chambers street ; and a third, by
the Dutch Reformed Church, in large rooms in Harmony Hall,
at the corner of William and Duane streets.

The board of trustees of the Free-School Society, in view of
these proceedings, deemed it their duty to apply to the Legisla-
ture, not only to repeal the section of the law granting peculiar
privileges to the Bethel Baptist Church, but for such an amend-
ment as would restrict the action of religious societies to the
true intent of the common school law. The board, therefore,
adopted the draft of a bill to be submitted to the Legislature.

Previous to making the application to the Legislature, the
board thought proper to obtain the sanction and aid of the Com-
mon Council. They were induced to take this course not only
because the petition of the constituted guardians of the city
would have great influence with the Legislature, but because
they were interested in the proper administration of the school
interests of the city. The application of the trustees to the
Common Council was referred to a very intelligent committee,
who heard a full discussion of the question on the part of the
Society, by several members of the board, and, on the oppo-
sition, by Rev. Messrs. Mathews and "Wainwright. The com-
mittee reported fully and urgently in favor of the measures
proposed by the Free-School Society, and recommended the
adoption, of a memorial to the Legislature. The memorial was
unanimously adopted, as follows :

To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York, in Senate and As-
sembly convened :

The memorial and petition of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty
of the city of New York, respectfully represent, that, as the constituted
guardians of the institutions and general welfare of the ci'y of New York,
they think themselves called upon to apply to your honorable body for
certain amendments in the laws relative to the distribution of the common
school fund in said city.

BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH. 65

By the act of March 12th, 1813, the portion of this fund for the city of
New York is directed to be distributed and paid to the trustees or treasurers
of certain benevolent institutions in the act named, and such incorporated
religious societies as then supported, or should thereafter support, charity
schools within the said city, who might apply for the same ; and such dis-
tribution is directed to be made to each school in proportion to the average
number of children, between the ages of four and fifteen years, taught there-
in, free of expense.

By the fourth section, the religious societies in the city of New York are
allowed to participate in the common school fund a privilege peculiar to
them, as it is not enjoyed by any religious society in the State out of said
city.

Your memorialists respectfully conceive that, at the passage of the sec-
tion last referred to, it was not contemplated by the Legislature that the
respective religious societies provided for in the section would engage in the
business of educating the children of poor people generally, but th'at, if any
availed themselves of the privilege granted them, they would do so in the
establishment of schools for the education of the poor of their respective
congregations. This, however, is not the practical construction of the law,
as some of the religious societies in the city are in the habit not only of
receiving them in their schools, but of soliciting the attendance of poor
children of every denomination and description, and drawing for them from
the common school fund. It will readily be perceived that this course is
dictated by the interest of every religious society which has established a
school ; for the greater the number of scholars, the larger will be the amount
drawn from the fund. One religious society has already established three
large schools upon the Lancasterian plan ; and others, stimulated by this
example, are exerting themselves to increase their schools already estab-
lished, or have it in contemplation to establish new ones upon an extensive
scale.

Your memorialists have witnessed, certainly with great pleasure, the zeal
of the different religious societies in the city in so important a branch of
Christian duty as the education of the poor ; and if their exertions can be
continued at the expense of private benevolence, they are worthy of all
praise. But your memorialists think that large drafts from the common
school fund, by the religious societies, would be attended with consequences
much to be deprecated.

It will be seen, by reference to the act of 1813 above referred to, that a
number of institutions supporting charity schools in the city of New York,
besides religious societies, are authorized to draw from the common school
fund. The principal among these institutions is the Free-School Society.

This Society has been in active operation for more than eighteen years,
and your memorialists can bear testimony to the great extent of its utility.
According to documents which have been made public, more than eighteen
thousand poor and destitute children have been assisted in obtaining a com-
mon school education. There are now daily taught in these schools about
four thousand children ; and the good order and wise government of these
5

66 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

establishments are matters of public notoriety. Such is the organization of
this Society, that it cannot, in the opinion of your memorialists, fail to be
permanently useful. It enrolls among its members gentlemen of almost
every religious sect known in this country ; it is founded upon principles
purely catholic, and is allied to no sect or party. Among the trustees who
now manage its concerns, as well as those who have heretofore had charge
of them, are numbered some of our most active, munificent, and public-
spirited citizens, who are and have been willing to devote a portion of their
time and talents to the single object for which the Society was organized
the education of the poor.

Such being the character of the Free-School Society, your memorialists
think it permanently entitled to public patronage and support. The schools
under the charge of the Society are, however, mainly dependent for the
means necessary for their support upon the common school fund ; the con-
tinuance and the future establishment of sectarian schools, for the purpose
of general education, will have the effect to diminish the scholars in attend-
ance upon the schools of the Society many having already been induced to
leave them and thereby so diminish the amount drawn from the school
fund as to render it insufficient for the support of the schools ; they will,
therefore, gradually decrease as the sectarian schools arise, and will finally be
discontinued. This result the best interests of the poor of this metropolis,
not only for the present but future generations, are, in the opinion of 'your
memorialists, deeply concerned in preventing. Your memorialists do not
deem it necessary to give, in this place, all the reasons which determine their
minds to this opinion, but there are a few which they beg leave briefly to
suggest.

The question for the determination of the Legislature at this time is pre-
sumed to be, whether the Free-School Society shall be suffered to continue
its operations, and have the principal management of gratuitous education
in the city of New York, or whether the religious societies shall take it out
of their hands, and the poor be educated in sectarian schools?

The duties of religious societies are so numerous, that it is not believed
that the business of educatmg-the poor, if entrusted to them, would receive
the attention it deserves, and might be expected, from a society organized
for no other object. The success of large schools upon the Lancasterian
plan cannot be entirely effected by competent teachers, but depends very
much upon their being subjected to frequent visitations and examinations
by persons of intelligence and standing in society. The happy effects of
such visitations and examinations have been fully exemplified in the schools
of the Free-School Society. These schools are visited semi-weekly by com-
mittees of the Board of Trustees, besides being occasionally visited by the
whole board, consisting of thirty-six members.

If religious societies are to be the only participators of the school fund
for the city of New York, a spirit of rivalry will, it is thought, be excited
between different sects, which will go to disturb the harmony of society,
and which will early infuse strong prejudices in the minds of children
taught in the different schools. Moreover, your memorialists would suggest

BETHEL BAPTIST CHUECH. 67

to your honorable body, whether the school fund of the State is not purely
of a civil character, designed for a civil purpose ; and whether, therefore, the
entrusting of it to religious or ecclesiastical bodies is not a violation of an
elementary principle in the politics of the State and country.

Tour memorialists therefore pray, that the law relative to the distribu-
tion of the school fund in the city of New York be so amended as to pre-
vent any religious society, entitled to a participation in the fund* from draw-
ing for any other than the poor children of their respective congregations.

Tour memorialists have prepared the draft of a bill containing this,
among other amendments, upon which they have not deemed it necessary to
offer any remarks in this place. They have been induced to make this
application to your honorable body, not only by the deep interest which
they feel in the establishing a system of gratuitous education which may
be of permanent utility to the poor of this city, over which they have been
called to preside, but because it is made their duty to raise, by a tax on the
citizens, an amount for the purposes of education equal to that received by
the city from the funds of the State.

And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
WILLIAM PATJLDING, JR.,

Mayor of the City of New York.

[L. s.] By the Common Council,

J. MORTON, Clerk.

The above memorial, and bill which it recommended, were
unanimously adopted by the Corporation of the city of New
York ; but before the memorial was engrossed, a special meeting
of the board was called, at the request of two highly respectable
clergymen in the city of New York, to reconsider the subject.
At this meeting the memorial and bill were again referred to a
committee, consisting of Aldermen Burtsell, Mann, Taylor, Bol-
ton, and Hone, who, after having fully investigated the subject,
reported as follows. This report was adopted by the board with-
out a dissenting voice :

Is COMMON COUNCIL, February 16.7i, 1824.

The committee on applications to the Legislature, to whom was referred
for reconsideration the law and memorial relating to the free schools in this
city, beg leave respectfully to report :

That they have taken into consideration the objections made to the said
law, and have had the subject fully discussed before your committee by gen-
tlemen of the highest standing as to character and intelligence, who were
deeply interested therein ; but, upon mature consideration, your -committee
are of opinion that it would be inexpedient to alter any of the provisions
of the said law.

Tour committee deem it inexpedient to repeat all the reasons which have
induced them to recommend an application to the Legislature for the law in

68 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

its present form, inasmuch as they presume it is a subject in a great degree
familiar to the board, and as the memorial contains the principal reasons, to
which they respectfully refer.

Your committee, however, consider it proper to state, that they believe
this law to be of the utmost importance to the preservation of the New
York Free-School Society, and, consequently, highly essential to the welfare
of the community in general ; and that, as this board may be considered the
constituted guardians of the institutions and general prosperity of this city,
it does seem, in the opinion of your committee, correct for them to interfere,
and aid in the preservation of so benevolent and praiseworthy an institu-
tion.

The committee, therefore, respectfully recommend the adoption of the
following resolution :

Resolved, That the draft of a law and memorial relating to common
schools in the city of New York, as passed at a former meeting of this
board, be approved of, and that his Honor the Mayor be requested to au-
thenticate in the usual form, and forward the same to the Legislature.

Adopted by the Common Council.

J. MOBTON, Clerk.

This emphatic approval of the course of the Society having
been obtained, the committee continued its labors, in the expec-
tation of being able to secure the desired amendments to the law
at an early day in the then ensuing session. The following is
the memorial adopted by the Society and presented to the Legis-
lature during the regular session of 1824 :

To the Honorable the Senate and, Assembly of the State of New York :

ThA Memorial of the Trustees of the Free-School Society of New York,
RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH,

That, by the act of March 12th, 1813, the portion of the common school
fund for the city of New York is directed to be distributed and paid to the
trustees of the Free-School Society in the city of New York, and the trus-
tees or treasurers of the Orphans' Asylum Society, the Society of the Eco-
nomical School in the city of New York, the African Free-School, and of
such incorporated religious societies in said city as now support, or hereafter
shall establish, charity schools within the said city, who may apply for the
same ; and such distribution shall be made to each school in proportion to
the average number of children between the ages of four and sixteen years
taught therein the year preceding such distribution, free of expense.

Your memorialists respectfully conceive that, at the passage of the act
last referred to, it was not contemplated by the Legislature that any re-
ligious society would establish a charity school for the instruction of any
other than the poor of their own congregation. But experience has proved
that some religious societies in the city of New York do increase their char-
ity schools, by receiving into them children who do not belong to their

BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH. 69

respective congregations, and thus draw from the common school fund a
larger sum than they would otherwise be entitled to for the support of their
schools. The operation of this proceeding is, to diminish the number of
scholars in the schools under the charge of your memorialists, and, conse-
quently, their proportion of the common school fund, upon which princi-
pally they are dependent for the support of their establishments.

Your memorialists would state, that the Society from which they derive
their appointment is perfectly catholic in its principles, pledged to no sect
or party ; that it is composed of gentlemen of all religious denominations,
and that there is nothing in the act incorporating it, or in the constitution
by which it is governed, which prevents any respectable man from uniting
himself with it, and having a choice in the selection of its officers and a
voice in its proceedings ; that the schools, are open to the children of every
denomination ; and that, while the leading principles of the Christian faith
are taught them," the points of collision between the different sects are care-
fully avoided.

Inasmuch as the law, in its present shape, has the effect to injure the
establishments under the charge of your memorialists, they respectfully
request that it may be so amended as to prohibit the religious societies in
the city from drawing from the common school fund for any other than the
poor children of the members of they: own societies, or of those who stated-
ly worship with them. Your memorialists believe that this amendment of
the existing law is recommended by many considerations of sound policy ;
and, among these, not the least is, that the interests of the whole Christian
community will be best promoted by encouraging the principle that each
religious society is bound to provide for the education of their own poor
children, and that, if they attempt to do more, they ought to do it at their
own expense, and not to look to the funds of the State for assistance.

LEONARD BLEECKEK, Vice-President. [L. s.]

LINDLEY MURRAY, Secretary.

January 27<ft, 1824.

We, the undersigned, unite with the trustees of the New York Free-
School Society in their memorial to the Legislature, requesting that the
respective religious societies in the city of New York be restricted, in draw-
ing from the common school fund, to the poor children of their own congre-
gation instructed by them.

In behalf of the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the city
of New York.

JOSEPH SMITH, President pro tern. [L. s.]

GEORGE SUCKLEY, Secretary.

January 31s?, 1824. *

Certificates similar to the above, signed by the following per-
sons, were placed in the hands of the Committee of Colleges,
Academies, and Common Schools :

ARCHIBALD MACLAY, pastor of the Baptist Church in Mulberry street.
JOHN WILLIAMS, pastor of the Baptist Church in Oliver street.

70 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

WILLIAM MCMURRAY, president, and PETER NEEFUS, secretary, of the
consistory of the Reformed Dutch Church in Market street.

THOMAS McAuLEY, pastor, S. WHEELER, President of the Board of Trus-
tees of Rutgers street Church.

WARD STAFFORD, pastor of the Bowery Presbyterian Church. In be-
half of the trustees, RICHARD COOK.

WILLIAM PATTON, pastor, REUBEN MUNSON, Chairman of the Board of
Trustees of Central Presbyterian Church, Broome street.

PETER BONNET, president, STEPHEN LOCKWOOD, clerk, of the Board of
Trustees of the Brick Presbyterian Church.
GARDINER SPRING, pastor of said church.

We, the undersigned, unite with the trustees of the New York Free-
School Society in their memorial to the Legislature, requesting that the
respective religious societies in the" city of New York be restricted, in draw-
ing from the common school fund, to the poor children of their own congre-
gations instructed by them.

PETER MCCARTEE,
JOHN JOHNSTON,
JOHN MCGREGOR, JR.,
THOMAS SUFFERN,
SAMUEL THOMPSON,

Trustees of the Presbyterian Church in Murray street, under the charge of
the Rev. W. D. SNODGRASS.

January.

A number of respectable clergymen of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, signed a certificate similar to the foregoing.

The Committee on Colleges, Academies, and Common Schools,
to which the several memorials were referred, submitted a report
and bill, which embodied the provisions of the bill drafted by
the Society, The report is as follows :

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE ASSEMBLY.

Mr. Gardiner, from the Committee on Colleges, Academies, and Common
Schools, to whom was referred the memorial of the Mayor, Aldermen, and
Commonalty of the city of New York, praying for an alteration in the law
relative to the distribution of the common school fund in said city, together
with the draft of an act prepared by the Corporation also the memorial of
the Free-School Society of said city reported, that the act proposed by the
Corporation of said city contains a revision of. all the laws at present in
force relative to the distribution of the common school fund in said city ;
that the only material alteration which it proposes in existing laws is, that
each religious society in said city which now supports, or hereafter may
establish, charity schools, may be restricted, in drawing from the common
school fund, to the children of the parents or guardians who statedly wor-
ship with such society.

BETHEL BAPTIST CHTJKCH. 71

From the documents laid before your committee, it appears that the
propriety of making the proposed alteration has been fully discussed by
gentlemen of high standing in the city of New York, favorable to, and
opposed to, the alteration, before an intelligent committee of the Corpora-
tion, who reported in favor of it, which report was unanimously adopted by
the board.

It further appears, by the memorial of th$ Corporation, that the passage
of the proposed act is considered by that body as necessary to the preserva-
tion of the Free-School Society of New York an institution which, the
memorialists represent, has been in operation more than eighteen years, and
has assisted more than 18,000 poor and destitute children in obtaining a
common school education ; that there are now daily taught, in the schools
under the charge of the Society, more than 4,000 children, and that the
good order and wise government of the establishments are matters of pub-
lic notoriety. It is further stated in the memorial, that this institution is
composed of gentlemen of all religious denominations ; that it is allied to
no sect or party, but pursues its operations upon principles purely catholic.
The Corporation further represent that the consequence of destroying this
Society will be, that the poor children of New York will be educated in
sectarian schools. It appears, by the last annual report of the Secretary of
State, the acting superintendent of common schools, " that he is persuaded
that some legislative remedy is necessary, to continue in full and vigorous
operation this institution, which is certainly one of the noblest and most
useful in the State an institution which has certainly contributed more to
the education of poor children, and the extirpation of vice and immorality,
than any other of the numerous valuable ones which it contains."

The memorial of the trustees of the Free-School Society also prays, that
the law be so amended as to limit the .religious societies in said city, in
drawing from the common school fund, to the poor children of the mem-
bers of their own societies, or of those who statedly worship with them.

Certificates of concurrence in the prayer of the last-mentioned memorial,
signed by the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, two highly re-
spectable pastors of Baptist Churches, the consistory of a Keformed Dutch
Church, and the pastor and trustees of the Presbyterian Churches in said
city, have also been laid before the committee.

These memorials were presented to the honorable the Assembly on the
24th day of February ultimo, but no remonstrance has as yet appeared ; and
your committee have not deemed themselves justified in waiting any longer
in expectation of such remonstrance, especially as it has been represented to
them that the passage of the act the present session is a matter of great
public importance.

Your committee have examined the several" acts relative to the Free-
School Society of New York, and find it to be a corporation limited. to
$10,000 income from its real and personal estate ; that the Mayor, Recorder,
Aldermen, and Assistants of said city are ex-officio members of said corpora-
tion, and that it is made the duty of the trustees of said corporation to
report annually to the general meeting of the said corporation, in May in

72 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

each year, " a particular account of the state of the school, or schools, under
their care, and of the moneys received and expended by them during the
year, so as to exhibit a full and perfect statement of the properties, funds,
and affairs of said corporation."

The committee are satisfied that the trustees of the Society have faith-
fully complied -with this requisition of the act, and that the Society were
the first to introduce in this country the Lancasterian system of education,
and that they have brought this system to a high degree of perfection in
their schools.

A number of reasons offered in favor of the passage of this act are, how-
ever, founded upon local peculiarities, with which a majority of your com-
mittee have not an intimate acquaintance. ; but it appears that these have
been fully considered by the Corporation of the city of New York, who,
from their particular knowledge of the interests and feelings of the city, are
enabled to give them due weight, and who were obviously much interested
in the question, as they are compelled by law to raise, by a tax on the citi-
zens, an amount for the support of common schools equal to that received
from the school fund of the State. Your committee, therefore, think that
the decision of the Corporation on this subject is entitled to the respectful
consideration of the Legislature.

There is, however, one general principle connected with this subject, of
no ordinary magnitude, to which the committee would beg leave to call the
attention of the House.

It appears that the city of New York is the only part of the State where
the school fund is at all subject to the control of religious societies. This
fund is considered, by your committee, purely of a civil character, and there-
fore it never ought, in their opinion, to pass into the hands of any corpora-
tion or set of men who are not diretly amenable to the constituted civil
authorities of the Government, and bound to report their proceedings to the
public. Your committee forbear, in this place, to enter fully into this
branch of the subject ; but they respectfully submit, whether it is not a vio-
lation of a fundamental principle of our legislation, to allow the funds of
the State, raised by a tax on the citizens, designed for civil purposes, to be
subject to the control of any religious corporation. It is not requested by
the memorialists, however, that the religious corporations -should be ex-
cluded entirely from a participation in the school fund ; and perhaps it
would not be expedient thus to exclude them at this time.

Your committee, therefore, ask leave to introduce a bill accordingly.

The Legislature adjourned without enacting any law affect-
ing the interests of the Free-School Society. The questions in-
volved, and the high respectability of the influence brought to
bear in favor of a continuance of the privilege granted to the
Bethel schools, made an immediate revision of the statute im-
practicable. Time was required for a full investigation of the
whole matter, and the session closed without any other action

BETHEL BAPTIST CHUECH. 73

than the reception of the memorials, the reports of committees,
the discussions had in the Legislature, and the hearing of the
opposing parties before the legislative committees.

The committee of the Society having the care of this impor-
tant interest was continued, and, at the meeting of the trustees
held on the 6th of August following, they submitted a brief re-
port of their progress, which exhibits the liberality and the dis-
interested labors of the gentlemen named, in a manner worthy
of record :

The Committee on the School Fund Law, in addition to what they have
heretofore reported, state, that they have received from WILLIAM HOWARD,
as a donation toward defraying the expenses of our agents at Albany, one
hundred dollars, which, at his request, has been paid to Lindley Murray and
Joseph Grinnell, in part of their expenses, who declined receiving any com-
pensation out of the funds of the Society for their time, expenses, and labo-
rious services during the last session of the Legislature.

They likewise mention, that the institution owes much to Mr. John
Targee, for his ready and Active exertions on their behalf during the above
period, which were gratuitously rendered, from a thorough conviction that
our application was made from the purest motives, and with the sole view
to benefit the children of the lowest class of the community.

The committee recommend that John Targee be elected a member of
this Society.

They further state, that they have appointed Rensselaer Havens, Joseph
Grinnell, Lindley Murray, and Alderman Cow drey, agents to attend the
Legislature at the approaching session, to effect (if possible) the passage of
the law which, for want of time, was laid over in April last.

On behalf v of the committee,

LEONARD BLEECKER. Chairman.

NEW YORK, July 23, 1824.

During the interval between the sessions of the Legislature,
overtures were made by the committee of the Society to secure
an amicable adjustment with the Bethel Church, but without
effecting the object. The extra session, therefore, found the case
still open for settlement by the Legislature upon the merits of
the question as it should come before that body.

The third meeting (an extra session) of the forty-seventh ses-
sion of the Legislature commenced on the 2d of November ;
and, at an early day, the committee proceeded to Albany to pro-
tect and advocate the interests and claims of the Society. A
number of gentlemen also appeared at the Capital in opposition
to the bill, among whom were Rev. Drs. Milnor and Mathews,

74: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Rev. Mr. Ouderdonk, Rev. M. Hutton, who was connected with
Dr. Mathews' congregation, Rev. Johnson Chase, and others.

' At the instigation, it was generally understood, of Rev. Mr.
Onderdonk, a motion was made in the Senate by Senator Liv-
ingston, that the Committee of the Whole be discharged from
the further consideration of the bill, with a view to refer it
again to a select committee. This motion prevailed, and the
committee appointed consisted of Senators Livingston, Cramer,
Ward, Burt, and Gardiner. This committee subsequently heard
another full discussion of the subject by Hiram Ketchum, Esq.,
on the part of the Public School Society, and Messrs. Onder-
donk and Chase in opposition, who, while they disagreed with
each other as to the grounds of disaffection, were equally op-
posed to the bill. The committee were likewise divided in opin-
ion upon the propriety of the passage of the bill as it came from
the Assembly, and it was therefore agreed by the committee of
the Senate that the bill should be so amended as to vest in the Cor-
poration of the city the power of distributing the school money
in such manner as they in their wisdom should think proper.

The committee of the Society, when consulted upon the
amendment, replied, that they had no instructions from their
constituents as to the acceptance of such a proposition ; but,
upon consultation with the president of the Society (DE WITT
CLESTON), it was deemed that they would not be warranted in an
opposition which would embarrass the passage of the bill, and
they accordingly gave their assent to the proposed amendment.
The opponents of the bill waived their objections, and accepted
the proposition as submitted by the committee, which, being
modified by Senator Jordan, who was the author of the section
making remuneration to the Bethel Church, was adopted by the
Senate. The Assembly, without any discussion, unanimously
accepted the amendment, and the bill was passed by that body,
November 19, and, having received the signature of the Gov-
ernor, it became a law.

The special provisions of the act which related to the ques-
tions immediately at issue were the following :

By section 3, the Corporation was directed to name the com-
missioners (one for each of the ten wards into which the city was
then divided) in January, 1825, and once in every three years
thereafter.

BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH. 75

By section 4, the Corporation, in common council convened,
was directed to designate, at least once in three years, the schools
which should receive school moneys.

The act also recited a preamble, that, whereas " the trustees
of the Bethel Baptist Church, in the city of New York, had ex-
pended moneys in erecting a commodious school-house in Eliza-
beth street," and which property, under the provisions of the
act, might become in part useless to them, the Superintendent
of Common Schools was authorized to appoint appraisers, who
should estimate the damage to the trustees, and which should be
repaid out of the school moneys, in four equal annual pay-
ments.

The exciting controversy being thus terminated, the trustees
of the Bethel schools maintained them until the inexpediency of
their longer continuance became too evident to be disregarded,
and they were suspended.

The distribution of the school fund being thus committed by
the new law to the hands of the Common Council,- the trustees
proceeded to mature a systematic plan for the enlargement and
expansion of their scheme of instruction, and, at their meeting
in December, 1824, entrusted the matter to a committee, con-
sisting of Stephen Allen, Joseph Grinnell, Liridley Murray,
Robert C. Cornell, Benjamin Clark, James Palmer, and Isaac
Collins. The plans matured and submitted in this report of the
committee comprehended an enlarged scheme for the reorganiza-
tion of the system.

76 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORY FROM 1822 TO 1826.

The Annual Meeting School-House No. 5 Annual Exhibit and Expenses for 1822
Systematic Visitation " Sections " No. 5 Opened Real Estate Building Fund
Corporal Punishment Hiram Ketchum New School Law Application to the
Legislature Committee of Ladies for Visiting Girls' Schools School Sections
Appointed School at Bellevue Hospital No. 6 Visit of the Common Council
to the Schools Resolutions Pay System The School Fund Controversy The
Museum Mrs. Scudder Charles Picton Resigns, and Returns to England Gen-
eral La Fayette Visit to New York Inspection of the Schools The New
School Law New Plans The Pay System The Common Council Plans Ap-
proved Proceedings in the Legislature The New Law Name of the Society
Changed " The Public School Society " Reorganization and Measures.

THE contest which opened with the year 1822 was the first
of the encounters with religious denominations which subse-
quently formed so prominent a feature in the proceedings of the
Society. The aim of the directors of the institution had always
been to respect and preserve the rights of all religious denomi-
nations, and to pay equal deference to the rights of conscience
of all portions of the community, at the same time that they
aimed to inculcate those fundamental ideas of religion and mor-
als, without which civilized men present a condition which
differs from that of the savage merely in its artificial surround-
ings, and the tinsel and splendor of a more polished social life.
The pressure of sectarian influence, and the selfishness of secta-
rian acquisitiveness, led to the adoption of unworthy and repre-
hensible means in order to secure the public support of church
schools. The question, which had assumed a threatening appear-
ance for some time, had finally taken a definite form in the dis-
cussion relative to the new school-site in Mott street, and the
rivalry on the part of the trustees of the Bethel Church to
secure all the advantages which had been granted them by the
act of the Legislature in their favor. This controversy has been
fully reviewed in the preceding chapter.

NEW SCHOOL IN MOTT STREET. 77

The month of May, which closed the seventeen th year of the
existence of the Society, was marked by the usual annual meet-
ings of the board, and the election of additional trustees. The
special business which received attention, in connection with the
working of the system, wlis that of approving the plans and esti-
mates for the new school-building in Mott street, the purchase
of the lots of ground, and other details essential to the carrying
out of that measure.

The average number of pupils in attendance at all the
schools, as appears by the exhibit of the trustees, was 3,412 ;
and the expenses of the Society amounted, for the year, to
$14,440. There was a debt of $6,000, secured by mortgage on
school property, and a temporary loan of $2,500 on the obliga-
tions of the Society.

The advantage of a systematic visitation of the schools had
been long apparent to the board ; and as the number of schools
was increasing, and a proper division of labor was requisite to
prevent unnecessary confusion in the discharge of these duties,
an amendment to the by-laws was proposed, by which a classifi-
cation of the trustees should be made for the management of the-
schools. The proposition was referred to a committee, who re-
ported a plan for the division of the members of the board into
" sections," for the care of the respective schools. These " sec-
tions " were required to make monthly reports to the board.
The recommendations of the report were substantially adopted.

The new school in Mott street, No. 5, was completed and
ready for occupancy in the month of October, and on the 28th
of that month it was opened, with 111 boys ; the girls' school
commencing on the 31st, with 49 scholars. JOSEPH BELDEN was
appointed teacher in the boys' school, and MAKY OTIS in the
girls' school.

The erection of the building called for the expenditure of
$9,591.09 ; to meet which, a loan of $10,000 had been obtained
of Thomas Collins, at 6 per cent, per annum, and mortgages for
$5,000 each had been given upon No. 4, in Rivington street, and
No. 5, in Mott street.

This school affords one of the illustrations of the economy
and integrity with which the contracts of the Society were exe-
cuted, the cost of the building complete differing from the e'sti-
mates only a trifling sum, including charges for " extra work."

78 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY. ,

The valuation of the real estate of the Society, at the close
of 1822, was as follows :

School No. 1, and lots, .... $20,000

No. 2, ... 10,000

No. 3, . 11,000

No. 4, . . . 9,000

No. -5, ... 12,000

Vacant lots in Hudson street, . . 2,000

School furniture in No. 1, . . 1,000

" " No. 2, . . . 800

" " No. 3, . . . 1,100

" " No. 4,. .. . 1,100

" " No. 5, ... 1,000

Total, . . . $68,000

From this amount, by deducting a mortgage of $6,000 on
School No. 3, and $5,000 each on Nos. 4 and 5, making, in all,
$16,000, we have the sum of $52,000 as the amount of property
held by the Society beyond its liabilities.

In accordance with the direction of the board in the early
part of the year, the proposition to raise a building fund, by
special additional tax, was renewed, and on the 13th of Decem-
ber the subject was referred to a committee, consisting of Robert
C. Cornell, Benjamin Clark, and Eleazer Lord.

At the meeting of the board held on the 10th of January,
1823, a resolution was adopted, ordering corporal punishment
in the schools to be discontinued, prohibiting entirely the use of
the rattan, and permitting only the use of a leather strap in ex-
treme cases the strap to be applied only to the hand of the
refractory scholar. This was a step in a reform which became,
at a later period, a marked feature in the administration of the
schools.

The Legislature of the State was at this time in session, and
active measures were diligently pressed forward to secure the
repeal of the law granting special privileges to the Bethel school.
The expediency of having a competent pleader and representa-
tive to present the views and interests of the Society to the
Legislature was felt, very sensibly ; and, at the meeting of the
board on the 18th of February, 1823, HIRAM KETCHUM, Esq.,

THE SCHOOL FUND. Y9

was elected a member, and immediately ap pointed to proceed to
Albany to attend to the various measures which affected the
institution, and obtain, if possible, the repeal of the obnoxious
clause.

A committee was appointed, on the 7th of February, to re-
port the draft of a new law relative to the distribution of the
school fund the committee being composed of Benjamin Clark,
Robert C. Cornell, John R. Hurd, Joseph Grinnell, and Lindley
Murray. This committee reported on the 18th of the same
month, and their report was committed to Hiram Ketchu-m,
Gideon Lee, John Rathbone, Jr., and Rensselaer Havens, to
revise and lay before the Legislature. The committee first
appointed reported also a brief memorial to that body, which,
with other similar papers, form a part of the official action of
the (Society with regard to the distribution of the school moneys
to sectarian and rival establishments. The memorial was adopt-
ed, as follows :

To the Honorable the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York :

Your memorialists, the trustees of the Free-School Society of New York,
being deeply interested in the distribution of the common school fund in
the qity and county of New York, respectfully suggest that a revision of the
existing laws on that subject for this city and county would, in their opin-
ion, tend to promote the wise and benevolent intentions of the Legislature
in making the liberal appropriations they have, for the education of poor
children, and that the following regulations would be highly beneficial,
viz. :

That each institution or society that receives of the common school fund
shall receive in proportion to the average number of scholars that actually
attend their schools each year, which number shall be ascertainable by the
teachers keeping a record of the number of scholars that attend each school-
time throughout the year, and the whole number of scholars thus recorded
in. a year shall be divided by the number of school-times, and this result
shall be considered as the average number of scholars that have attended
for a year.

That each institution or society (except the New York Free-School So-
ciety) who may receive of the common school fund shall expend the same in
the payment of teachers, purchase of fuel and stationery, and for no other
purpose whatever ; and, should they have any balance unexpended at the
close of a year, they shall pay it to the commissioners of the common school
fund for the city and county of New York, to be added to the sum to be
divided the ensuing year.

Your memorialists respectfully refer to the annexed bill on this subject,
embracing the above provisions, and some others of importance, for the

80 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

detail of their views ; and, confiding in your wishes to extend the blessing
of education to the greatest possible number, we earnestly request that you
will take this subject into your wise consideration, and, if consistent with
your views, adopt the annexed bill as a law, which, we sincerely believe,
would greatly increase the benefit arising from the common school fund.

The delegates of the Society who visited Albany presented
the memorial and draft of the proposed law, which were referred
to the special committee on the matter of the repeal of the
Bethel school privileges. The House adopted a resolution call-
ing for information relative to schools in the city, and further
action was accordingly postponed until the following session.
The subsequent proceedings were so intimately involved with the
Bethel school question, that they have been detailed in the pre-
ceding chapter.

The board deemed it essential to the success and discipline of
the schools for girls, that they should receive the benefit of su-
pervision on the part of intelligent and philanthropic women ;
and, after some care had been given to the selection of proper
female visitors at the meeting of the board on the 4th of April
(1823), the following resolution was adopted :

Resolved, That the secretary "be requested to send a written invitation to
the following ladies to visit the several female schools under the care of this
board, for the purpose of inspecting those schools and the improvement of
the girls, and to suggest quarterly, by a report to the trustees, their opinion
of the state of those schools, and any change they may think advantageous
in the exercises, &c.

COMMITTEE FOB No. 1 : Mrs. John E. Hyde, Havens, Lucy Eddy, Grace
Bleecker, Mary Bleecker, Mrs. Najah Taylor.

COMMITTEE FOR No. 2 : Sarah Grinnell, Eliza Bowne, Hester Hussey,
Sarah Bowne, Sarah Crocker, Mary Hicks, Anna Mott, Ann Comstock.

COMMITTEE FOB No. 3 : Mrs. "Wm. Torrey, Mrs. T. Whittemore, Mrs.
Win. Torrey, Jr., Mrs. Pringle, Mrs. Bayard, Miss Nichols, Mrs. Peters, Mrs.
Weeks, Mrs. Oakley, Mrs. Van Buren, Mrs. Meigs.

COMMITTEE FOB No. 4 : Mrs. Covell, Armenia Palmer.

COMITTEE FOB No. 6 : Elizabeth Pearsall, Sarah Collins, Sarah Minturn,
Mary Minturn, Jane Anthon, Louisa Anthon, Hannah Shotwell, Margaret
Dudley, Martha Clarke.

In fhe month of June, after the annual election of officers
for the year, the proposition to classify the trustees as special
sections for the several schools was adopted, and the first classifi-
cation was made, as follows :

SCHOOL AT BELLEVUE HOSPITAL. 81

SEC. No. 1 : Benjamin Clarke, John E. Hyde, Robert C. Cornell, Najah
Taylor, Leonard Bleecker, Charles G. Haines.

SEC. No. 2 : John L. Bowne, Joseph Grinnell, Philetus Havens, Samuel
Wood, David Lyon, Hiram Ketchum.

SEC. No. 3 : William Torrey, Eleazer Lord, Samuel Boyd, Ezra Weeks,
Rensselaer Havens, William Howard, John Rathbone, Jr.

SEC. No. 4 : James Olmstead, James Palmer, Gideon Lee, George T.
Trimble, Solomon Wheeler, John R. Hurd, Wm. T. Slocum.

SEC. No. 5 : John Slidell, Isaac Collins, Lindley Murray, Robert F. Mott,
Israel Dean.

At the meeting at which the above classification was adopt-
ed, a proposition was offered and entertained relative to the
organization of a school for the poor children at what was then
known as the Bellevue Hospital. The proposition was referred
to Isaac Collins and Rensselaer Havens, who reported at the
next meeting that the Mayor, Commissioners, and Superintend-
ent of the Almshonse unanimously regarded the enterprise with
favor. A draft of a memorial relative to the proceeding was
reported by the committee, adopted by the board, and Samuel
Boyd being added to the committee, they were directed to lay it
before the Common Council. On the 1st of August, the com-
mittee reported that the memorial had been received by the Cor-
poration and referred to a committee, of which Samuel Cowdrey
was Chairman, who strongly recommended the plan for a school
at Bellevue. The commissioners were authorized to fit up appro-
priate apartments, and make the requisite arrangements for the
uew institution. The commissioners accordingly appropriated a
spacious hall, 95 by 21 feet, on the second story of a large brick
building attached to the Almshouse ; and the room having been
furnished and fitted up for school purposes, the registry of pupils
was proceeded with, and, on the 27th of October, School Ko. 6
was opened, with over 200 pupils, under the temporary charge
of SHEPHERD JOHNSON, of No. 3, and several experienced moni-
tors drafted from other schools for the purpose. Dr. Charles
Belden was appointed teacher, and, on the 31st of the month,
entered upon his duties. On the 4th of November, 270 pupils
were present.

The attendance at all the schools, as appears by the annual
exhibit for the year, was 4,090.

The Mayor and members of the Common Council having
been invited to visit the schools of the Society and attend the

82 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

examinations and public exercises, those gentlemen on a number
of occasions complied with the invitations, and the result of
their visits was so satisfactory, fhat a resolution was introduced
by Mr. Cowdrey, and unanimously adopted, in which a well-
merited compliment was paid to the system. The extract from
the proceedings of the Common Council is as follows :

IN COMMON COTJNCII, October 27, 1823.

Mr. COWDREY presented the following preamble and resolutions, which
were unanimously adopted :

The Common Council, having attended the examination of the several
free schools in the city, pursuant to the invitation of the Trustees of the
New York Free-School Society, and having observed the great improvement
made by the children in the different branches of useful knowledge, and, at
the same time, the exemplary attention that is paid in these schools to neat-
ness and cleanliness in the apartments, and regularity in the deportment and
habits of the children, the zeal with which the teachers of both sexes per-
form their several duties, and the benevolence and public spirit of the trus-
tees, by which they are prompted to bestow much, of their time and to
employ their best talents in so important a science to this interesting por-
tion of the rising generation,

Resolved, That the thanks of this board, in behalf of the citizens and
inhabitants of this city, are due, and are hereby tendered, to the said trus-
tees and teachers, for their labors in this department of public duty, and the
success which has so evidently attended their laudable exertions.
[Copy from the minutes.]

J. MORTON, Cleric.

At the meeting held in July, the question of establishing a
rate of charges for tuition, to be paid by those who desired to do
so, was pressed upon the attention of the board. It was stated
that a considerable number of respectable citizens of the middle
class would send their children to the schools of the Society,
were it not for the fact that they were free, and therefore re-
garded only as charity schools for poor children. It was expect-
ed that a moderate rate of charge could be adopted without cre-
ating any unpleasant discrimination as to pay or charity scholars,
and a committee was appointed to report upon the question.
The gentlemen selected for the purpose were Isaac Collins,
Hiram Ketchum, Robert F. Mott, E. C. Cornell, and John E.
Hurd. The report was not presented for many months, and will
be noticed in its appropriate place.

SAMUEL ~W. SETON was elected a trustee on the 3d of Octo-
ber, 1823.

EPISODE IN SCHOOL LIFE. 83

The approaching session of the Legislature made it necessary
that measures should be taken to present the interests of the
institution on the general issue, but particularly in relation to
the special legislation for the Bethel school. The memorials
which had been presented to the Legislature at the previous ses-
sion, with an address prepared and printed by a committee,
under the direction of the board, were circulated, and copies for-
warded to Albany for the members of the Legislature. Benja-
min Clark, Hiram Ketchum, Samuel Boyd, and Lindley Murray
were named as a committee to draft a bill to be submitted to tho
Legislature for their approval. The committee reported the
draft of a law for -the general purposes of the Society, and also a
draft of a special law to limit the privileges of religious socie-
ties.

The year 1824 accordingly opened with an active renewal of
the important controversy relative to the distribution of the
school fund. The delegates to Albany were opposed by able
and influential disputants, who closely contested the ground
taken by the board. In February, however, a special meeting
was held, at the call of the committee, when a proposition was
submitted, in order to meet the objection which was so violently
urged against the character of the Society, as being a " monop-
oly " and " a close corporation." By this scheme the property
of the Society should be inalienably devoted to school purposes,
and the schools should be under the supervision of the Common
Council, and subject to their control. After a protracted discus-
sion, the board adjourned, and reassembled the next day, when
the following resolution was adopted :

Resolved, That this board will, on behalf of the Society, consent to the
passage of a law that shall render the property of this institution inalien-
able, and sacredly pledged for the avowed objects of the institution, and
place the schools under the general supervision of the Common Council ;
and they will most cheerfully unite with their fellow-citizens in any general
plan for the extension of the monitorial system.

An interesting episode in school life was occasioned, in the
spring of this year, by the liberality of Mrs. Scudder, the widow
of John Scudder, the former proprietor of the American Mu-
seum, who generously presented four hundred tickets of admis-
sion to the Museum for distribution -to the meritorious pupils of

84: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the schools. The schools were- estimated, and an apportionment
of one ticket to every forty-five scholars was decided upon, the
time of admission being the Saturday afternoon of each week,
when the successful scholars were accompanied by teachers, and
visited the rooms of the Museum. This amusement served as a
fine stimulus to the pupils, who industriously competed with
each other for the prize.

On the 30th of April, CHARLES PICTON, the English teacher
who had charge of No. 4, resigned his post in order to return to
England. He had won a high reputation for his qualifications
and character, and bore, on his return to his native land, the
confidence and approbation of the board.

The average attendance had increased to 5,209, being a gain
of 419 over the preceding year.

The months of August and September, 1824, were rendered
important and t interesting to the American people by the visit
of General La Fayette to this country. His presence in New
York created great enthusiasm, and a committee of the Common
Council was appointed to make the arrangements for the civic
reception and complimentary tributes of respect from the peo-
ple. This committee conferred with a committee of the board,
and preparations were made for an exhibition and review, in the
Park, of the pupils of the free schools in the presence of the dis-
tinguished guest. General La Fayette was also invited to visit
the schools, with which invitation he afterwards complied, in-
cluding in his visits the colored school of the Manumission Soci-
ety, subsequently incorporated with the free schools.

The 10th of September was appointed for the principal occa-
sion, and, on the morning of that day, General La Fayette visit-
ed No. 3, where many of the officers and trustees were assembled
to receive him. After exercises of the kind usual at an exami-
nation, an address was made by one of the pupils, and a certifi-
cate of membership was presented to him by the Vice-President,
accompanied with some pertinent remarks.

At 2 o'clock [as is stated in the report of the committee], the children
of the several schools (except No. 6) were collected in the Park, and
arranged in two double lines around the walk next the fence, which was
roped in for the occasion. The columns stood facing each other, with a
space between them, through which the General was conducted by the com-
mittee and Mayor, and introduced to each of the teachers. The children, as

REPORT ON THE SCHOOL FUND. 85

he passed, expressed their feelings by the loud and. continued clapping of
hands. The General then took a stand in front of the City Hall, and the
scholars were marched in review before him as they passed out of the Park.
There were about five hundred boys and two hundred girls present at No.
3, and three thousand of both sexes in the Park. In conclusion, the com-
mittee have much pleasure in stating their belief that' the proceedings of
the day were witnessed by the General, and by thousands of our citizens,
with peculiar interest, and that all were gratified by an exhibition of the
state and magnitude of an institution whose moral and religious influence
must be acknowledged, and whose political bearing is expressed in the
motto on one of the banners used on this occasion " Education is the Basis
of Free Government."

The Legislature of the State having passed the bill to impose
the duty of designating the institutions which should participate
in the distribution of school moneys upon the Common Council
of the city, the delegates to Albany reported the facts to the
board in December, and a committee was appointed to report
upon such plans for a reorganization of the system as would
make it mpre efficient, popular, and useful. Messrs. Stephen
Allen, Joseph Grinnell, Lindley Murray, Robert C. Cornell,
Benjamin Clark, James Palmer, and Isaac Collins, were named
for the purpose.

The committee promptly proceeded with their labors, and in
January, 1825, made a long report, which was printed, and dis-
tributed among the trustees. It was made the subject of ear-
nest discussion at regular and special meetings, and a committee
was appointed to confer with the Law Committee of the Corpo-
ration ; but as that committee declined to give any opinion with-
out a specific proposition from the Society, the consideration of
the report by the trustees was continued. The Law Committee
having called a meeting of all interested in the schools partici-
pating in the school moneys, to be held on the 7th of March, the
report was again taken from the table at the meeting on'the 4th
of that month, and adopted. It is valuable not merely for its
facts, but because it became the basis of the subsequent reorgan-
ization of the Society, and is deemed worthy of republication.

REPORT OF A COMMITTEE OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE FREE-SCHOOL SOCIETY
ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE COMMON SCHOOL FUND.

The committee to whom was referred the new law relative to the com-
mon school fund, respectfully reporf :

That they have given the subject that consideration which its importance

86 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

seemed to demand, and were early led to believe that, as the portion of this
fund for the city is placed by the new law at the disposition of the Common
Council, it would be best to examine the whole system of common school
education in this city, in order that a plan may be devised best calculated
to economize and produce the greatest good from this noble fund. In pur-
suing this examination, the committee have thought it right to extend their
views beyond those who are considered the proper objects of gratuitous
instruction, and to include those children who attend the minor and inferior
pay schools.

Some of the defects in the present systejn of elementary education
among the lower and poorer classes of society may be stated as follows :

1st. Of the private pay schools.

Of the four hundred schools which have been ascertained to be in opera-
tion in this city, a large number are kept in small rooms, without sufficient
light or ventilation, or a due regard to cleanliness requisites so essential to
the health and comfort of youth and which schools are, in numerous in-
stances, taught by persons without the necessary qualifications for the dis-
charge of their important trusts, and, in some cases, even of doubtful mor-
als. On such teachers is the hard-earned money of our industrious citizens
too often wasted, and what is of much greater consequence in such schools
is the invaluable time of their offspring irretrievably lost.

The great variety of plans pursued in the different schools, and the vari-
ous and dissimilar school-books used in them, retards the progress of, and
increases the expense to, children removed from one to another.

The lower classes who attend pay schools, though taxed to raise a moiety
of the school fund, derive no immediate benefit therefrom.

3d. Of the free and charity schools.

The school fund, by being divided and distributed through so many
channels, is rendered incapable of as economical management, and of pro-
ducing so great an amount of good, as would be the case were it under the
control and applied to its intended purposes by a single society having but
the alone object in view of general education.

A fund designed for the civil education of the youth of this State is in
part placed at the disposal of religious societies.

Most of the parents of children in the free and charity schools, though
unable to pay for their instruction the prices usually charged in pay schools,
could probably afford to make some compensation for the education of their
children ; and, if so, the propriety of their entirely gratuitous instruction is
questionable.

With respect to the objections under the first head, and which apply to
a large portion of the lower-priced pay schools, your committee fully believe
a remedy would be found in the establishment of Lancasterian pay schools,
conducted by well-qualified and judicious teachers, or by increasing the
number and opening the establishments of the Free-School Society for the
reception of pay scholars. It is well known that great complaints have been
made by many of our citizens in the upper wards of the city, who are too
poor to send their numerous children to good pay schools, and yet with feel-

REPORT ON THE SCHOOL FUND. 87

ings too independent to send them to free schools, that, notwithstanding
they are taxed for the promotion of education, they do not derive any bene-
fit from the school fund, as do citizens of all classes in every other county in
the State.

lu consequence of the poor condition of many of the minor pay schools,
and of the very superior instruction and accommodation in our free schools,
applications are sometimes made to the trustees of the latter for the admis-
sion of children of poor but industrious citizens, provided they may be
allowed to pay a small sum annually for that which they are unwilling to
receive as a gratuity. This is, however, inadmissible under our act of in-
corporation.

The superior advantages of the Lancasterian, or System of Mutual
Instruction, so far as applied to an English elementary education, are too
well established by the light of experience to admit of doubt or need dis-
cussion ; and your committee therefore think the only question is, How
shall schools of the description proposed be established, and under what
auspices ?

The committee believe that their usefulness would be much increased by
their being subject to regular inspection and the control of trustees, and that
the latter should be persons influenced by motives of benevolence and pub-
lic good to undertake the important charge. Hence the propriety is inferred
of the establishment of a public society for the purpose of promoting and
superintending elementary instruction in this city. As the Free-School
Society has had an experience of nineteen years, during which period it has
educated more than twenty thousand of our poor children, your committee
have been led to the inquiry, whether this Society could not with great
advantage combine the proposed object with its present, and thus have the
general superintendence of the education of all classes who may attend the
public schools ? This question is connected with the second division of our
main inquiry the state of our free and charity schools, and the best mode
of applying the common school fund.

According to the United States census of 1820, the number of children
in this city and county, of the age of 16 years and under, was 47,282 (and
this number has probably increased subsequently to 53,000), of whom 27,000
may be computed to be between 5 and 15 years of age, and 20,000 are sup-
posed to be receiving literary instruction in a greater or lesser degree ; leav-
ing 7,000 who do not attend any school. The number of children officially
returned as having attended the free and charity schools of this city during
the year ending April 30th, 1824, was 10,383. And the sum of $7,087 was
drawn from the common school fund, to which a like sum raised by tax on
our citizens was added, making the amount paid from the public funds that
year, toward the support of those schools, $14,173. Of these 10,383 chil-
dren, 6,976 were educated in the schools of the Free-School Society, the
African Free School, the Female . Association, the Mechanics' Society, the
Hamilton Free School, the Orphan Asylum, and the Economical School, and
the remaining 3,407 attended the various sectarian or church schools (in-
cluding 1,616 reported as having been instructed in the Bethel Baptist

88 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

schools). See the report of the Commissioners of School Moneys. There
then was, and now is, ample room in our large and commodious school-
houses to acommodate two thirds of these 3,407 children, and who could
consequently, as no more teachers would be required in our schools, be
therein educated at very little additional expense to us, and the amount
annually paid (say $3,000 to $4,000) by the city for their instruction in
church schools, might be appropriated to the erection of new school-houses
in those sections of the city where they now are and may in future be want-
ed, so as finally to provide sufficient accommodations to receive and instruct
the 7,000 poor children now uneducated, and supposed to be roaming our
streets, and many of them daily acquiring the most vicious habits.

It hence appears that the public moneys appropriated to schools would
be more advantageously applied, and would produce a greater amount of
good, by being confined to one channel. For a further development of this
fact, your committee refer to the estimates and calculations appended to this
report.

In reference to the impolicy of any part of the public funds being placed
at the control of religious societies, your committee are unanimously and
decidedly of the opinion that it is totally incompatible with our republican
institutions, and a dangerous precedent in our free Government, to permit
any part of such funds to be disbursed by the clergy or church trustees for
the support or extension of sectarian education. The following remarks are
extracted from your last annual report to the Society, and to that report we
refer for a further illustration of this subject.

With respect to the school fund, it is purely of a civil character, being
for a civil purpose ; and the proposition that such a fund should never go
into the hands of an ecclesiastical body or religious society, is presumed to
be incontrovertible upon any political principle approved or established in
this country. It is conceded that religion is essential to the preservation
and prosperity of civil society ; but then, the leading principle of all our
legislation has ever been, to let religion support itself let it draw all its
resources from private benevolence ; and any law that should impose a
direct tax on our citizens for the support of religion, would assuredly meet
the disapprobation of the whole community. And this feeling of the peo-
ple does not arise from any disrespect for religion, but from a correct idea
of her exalted character. It has been left to the experience of this country
to show what appears problematical in the eyes of Europe that religion
requires no aid from the civil arm ; she needs no resources drawn from the
treasury of the State, but her resources consist of the willing contributions
of hearts subjected to her influence.

In this country we have our religious institutions. We have our clergy ;
they are, for the most part, well endowed and amply supported. The bene-
ficial tendency of their influence upon society is acknowledged. But how
are they supported ? By private benevolence. And who would wish to
have it otherwise ? Nay, it may be asked, Whose heart would not be indig-
nant at the proposition that the Government should tax the people for the
support of these institutions and these clergy ? And might it not be asked
with equal propriety, If a religious society wish to educate the poor, and
instill into their minds their own sectarian doctrines, is it not wrong that
they should command the public funds for this purpose, but ought they not
rather to do it as all other religious instruction is afforded at the expense

EEPOBT ON THE SCHOOL FUND. 89

of private benevolence ? It is not believed that the funds of the State were
ever designed to be used for sectarian purposes ; and the trustees think it
was a violation of sound political principle to allow religious societies origi-
nally any participation in the school fund.

The Committee of the Assembly on Colleges and Common Schools, to
whose consideration the proposed law relative to the distribution of the
school fund in the city was referred at the session of last winter, remark as
follows : ,

There is, however, one general principle connected with this subject, of
no ordinary magnitude, to which the committee would beg leave to call the
attention of the House. *

It appears that the city of New York is the only part of the State where
the school fund is at all subject to the control of religious societies. This
fund is considered by your committee purely of a civil character, and there-
fore it never ought, in their opinion, to pass into the hands of any corpora-
tion or set of men who are not directly amenable to the constituted civil
authorities of the Government, and bound to report their proceedings to the
public. 'Your committee forbear, in this place, to enter fully into this
branch of the subject ; but they respectfully submit whether it is not a vio-
lation of a fundamental principle of our legislation, to allow the funds of
the State, raised by a tax on the citizens, designed for civil purposes, to be
subject to the control of any religious corporation ?

This important question was long agitated and ably argued in our sister
State of Connecticut, as connected with their school fund, and it finally
resulted, to the entire satisfaction of the citizens, by excluding the clergy
and churches from having any control over it. Our own Legislature, at
their last extra session, wisely erased from the statute-book the only law
granting this privilege in this State ; and your committee cannot believe the
Corporation will ever engraft in the local code of the city a power which
ought to be unknown in a republican State.

It is, therefore, much to be desired for the preceding reasons, and to pre-
vent strife and jealousy and preserve that harmony which has heretofore so
happily existed between the several religious societies in this place, that the
honorable the Corporation would be induced, at an early day, to pass a reso-
lution to this effect : " That it is inexpedient to permit any school estab-
lished by, or under the care of, any religious society, to draw, in future, any
part of the common school fund."

There is no reason to doubt but that most of the church schools would
be continued and maintained out of their respective church treasuries, as
was formerly the case before any distribution of the school fund was made,
and as ever was, and still continues to be, the case with one religious soci-
ety, who consider it their Christian duty to educate, with their own re-
sources, all the children of their poor members, and of whom they have
many. Should the church schools, however, be partially or wholly discon-
tinued, your committee do not believe that any disadvantage to the public,
or to the children attending them, will arise ; as the means will be provided
for educating them elsewhere, and probably in a more economical, and as
well, if not in a superior manner.

90 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Your committee now proceed to the inquiry, whether advantages would
not arise from changing our free into pay schools, so far as to require from
all the parents a small compensation if it be only 12] or 25 cents a quar-
ter for the instruction of their children. In this, the most important
division of their report, the committee have availed themselves of the labors
of a former committee who reported on the subject :

The primary object which the Free-School Society have in view, is the
education of children of indigent parents in this metropolis. It is better
that this object should be effected entirely at the public expense, or by pri-
vate munificence, than that the children should go uneducated. There are,
perhaps, in this city a number of charitable institutions, which, by holding
out certain relief ^to the destitute, tend to relax those exertions which are
necessary to the prevention of poverty, thereby increasing and perpetuating
the very evils which they were humanely designed to remedy. Such insti-
tutions, it now requires no arguments to prove, do not promote the welfare
of the community; experience has furnished ample testimony, that the suf-
fering ever attendant upon unmitigated poverty is a wholesome moral dis-
cipline, and that the dread of that suffering is powerfully influential in pro-
ducing, on the part of individuals, those exertions and that providence by
which, in most instances, the evil may be prevented. This reasoning, how-
ever, applies with mitigated force, if at all, to the charity of which the
Free-School Society are the almoners. The direct effect of this charity is
the intellectual and moral improvement of its recipients. Imparting to
them, as it does, knowledge and virtue, they are thus supplied with the
inducement and the means of all legitimate prosperity. If, however, the
parents who send their children to the schools of the Society could be in-
duced to render something in the way of compensation for their instruction,
the committee are fully persuaded that the moral benefits resulting from
these schools would be sensibly increased.

Small contributions from parents would not, probably, so diminish their
means as to subject them to the least inconvenience, and would, moreover,
go to foster a principle of most beneficial tendency, that every person is
bound to render some return for services performed for him or his family :
or, if he be under the necessity of receiving aid from the public, it must be
'in the way of cooperation with his own exertions.

The improvement of parents is not, however, the object for which the
Society was organized : this object is the education of children. But if, in
pursuing this main object, collateral advantages should accrue to parents, a
consequence will be produced to which the Society can never be indifferent.

The principal advantages, however, resulting from the proposed measure
will, in the opinion of the committee, be reaped by the children themselves.
If parents pay for the education of their children, they will doubtless take
a greater interest in it, and be more likely to require punctuality in their
attendance upon the schools than under the existing system. That which
costs nothing is generally regarded as of little worth ; the only standard of
value for most things, with which the generality of mankind are acquaint-
ed, being the amount of money which they cost.

And here the committee would avail themselves of some valuable testi-
mony on this subject contained in one of the reports of the Society for Pro-
moting the Education of the Poor of Ireland a Society which, we are
informed in their Tenth Annual Report, afforded assistance to 513 schools, in
which are instructed more than 40,000 children, and whose last annual ex-
penditure was 14,282 9s. Qd. sterling. In some of the schools under their
charge they have tried the experiment of receiving one penny weekly,
amounting to 52 pence annually, from each child in attendance. It is not
intimated that there was ever any difficulty in collecting that amount (ex-

BEORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM. 91

cept in one school, where many of the children became indebted for more
than a year's dues). From an experience of the beneficial results of this
requisition, the Society recommend to the schools under this charge, that in
all cases the children should be required to pay a small sum weekly : by
such means, they observe, the funds of the school will be augmented, the
poor will set a higher value on the instruction imparted to them than they
probably would if they were entirely indebted to the bounty of others for
their education, and a habit of looking to their own exertions for their sup-
port will be cherished in their minds, which will prove of essential value
to them throughout life. In a subsequent report, the practice is again
strongly recommended, and the committee of the Society observe: "A
greater value appears to be set upon the instruction received, where a pay-
ment, though small, is required. It induces parents to look more closely to
the regular attendance of their children ; and it meets, besides, a feeling not
uncommon in this country (Ireland), which ought, perhaps, to be rather
encouraged than repressed of repugnance to receiving education as a mere
charitable boon, instead of obtaining through the means afforded by the
exertion of honest industry.

In the eighteenth report of the British and Foreign School Society, the
committee observe : " Experience has proved that the most effectual method
of supporting local schools is the demand, in addition to the aid of the
benevolent, of a small weekly sum from each scholar ; and the desire for
instruction on the part of the industrious poor is generally so great, that, in
most cases, nothing more is needed for the establishment of a school than
the cooperation and activity of a few zealous persons, whose exertions can
scarcely fail of being crowned with success." It is also stated, in the appen-
dix to the report, that " in a populous part of Lambeth (a part of London),
a school for the poor was erected on the plan of the British and Foreign
School Society, intended to hold 300 children ; the building cost more than
1,000 ; subscriptions, though liberal, fell greatly short, and the trustees
found themselves behind every year. The prospect being so dark, it was
thought expedient to make the parents of the children pay something
toward the education of them, and, ultimately, two pence per week was de-
manded. Some fear arose lest the attendance would be less. To obviate
this, the master was instructed not to reject any child whose parents were
unable to pay ; but only one such circumstance occurred. The experiment
gave rise to an unexpected circumstance, too important to be overlooked,
and promising a vast extension of the benefit of schools ; for the poor are
so well pleased with the new plan, that the attendance has been increased,
and the regularity of the attendance much improved. They feel a spirit of
independence excited by paying for their children which deserves encour-
agement, and a hope is held out that the benevolent views of the friends
to the education of the' poor may meet a strong aid in the means thus
afforded."

Thus much for the results of this experiment in England and Ireland.
The committee would add another consideration on this subject. If the
parents who now send their children to the free schools were in the habit
of making some returns for the instruction furnished them, it would beget
a feeling of respect and gratitude on the part of the children toward their
parents ; they would feel under greater obligations to them, and thus be fur-
nished with additional motives to the observance of that precept of the
moral law which lies at the foundation of social order and good government
" Honor thy father and thy mother."

In addition to the preceding evidence from foreign countries, the com-
mittee are happy to have it in their power to lay before the board the testi-
mony of some experience on the subject of inquiry in our own city.

92 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The Female Association did for some time receive pay to the amount of
one and two cents per week from each of their scholars. They found no
difficulty in collecting this amount, nor was the attendance on their schools
diminished, although, at the same time, the schools under the care of this
board were open for the instruction of their scholars free of expense. The
Association discontinued receiving pay, from the fear that they would other-
wise debar themselves from participating in the common school fund.

The African School at one time received from the children in attendance
an amount almost sufficient to pay the salary of the teacher.

With these results of experience before them, and reasoning from the
knowledge in their possession of the dispositions and feelings of some of
the poor of this city, and the pecuniary ability of most of them, your com-
mittee are decidedly in favor of the alteration above considered.

Having come to this result, the committee would now connect it with
the considerations in the former part of this report relative to the minor pay
schools, the economical management of the school fund, &c.

Any plan that can be devised to preserve harmony and good feeling
among the various religious sects, by removing all grounds for jealousy and
contention, to satisfy the just complaints of our worthy laboring citizens
who contribute to the common school fund, to increase, and, at the same
time, to economize the means we possess of enlightening, by literary, moral,
and religious instruction, our numerous youth, to break up the many inferior
pay schools, to promote an independent feeling, and unite all classes of our
citizens, should and, your committee cannot doubt, would receive the
cordial approbation of the Corporation, and of our citizens generally.

On a review of the whole subject, the conclusion to which the committee
have arrived is the proposition that the Free Scliool Society be changed into
a Public School Society, and that children of all classes be admitted into the
schools, paying therefor such compensation as may be within their pecuniary
ability ; and that, for the extension and support of these public schools, the
whole of the common school fund be paid annually to said Society.

A few of the advantages thai; would result from the adoption of a gen-
eral plan of public instruction are :

1st. A more general attention would be given by our citizens to the all-
important subject of education.

2d. Harmony would be preserved among religious sects.

3d. All of our citizens would contribute, and all be entitled to a share
of the benefits of the fund, in the cheap and good elementary education of
their children.

4th. A great increase, by the small payments from the children, of the
amount expended for public instruction.

5th. A uniform system in all the elementary schools of the city, which is
very important, in consequence of the frequent removals of the middle and
lower classes from one part of the city to another, and which uniformity
cannot be expected in the different church schools and small pay schools.

6th. Feelings of independence, which it is highly important to cultivate,
would be promoted among our poor and laboring classes.

REORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM. 93

Your committee now submit for the consideration of the board the fol-
lowing details of the proposed plan ; and they do so with a full persuasion
of its practicability, and the important benefits that would follow its adop-
tion.

i , I:M:K AI. PLAN.

Proposition 1st. The title of "The Free-School Society of New York "
to be changed to that of " The New York Public School Society," and its
charter to be so amended that children of all classes may be admitted into
the schools, and required to pay for their instruction according to the
branches they may learn, but not exceeding 60 cents per quarter ; the trus-
tees to have power to remit the charge in such cases as they may deem
proper.

Zd. Fifty trustees to be elected by the Society at their annual meeting ;
and the trustees so elected to have power to add to their number, provided
the whole number of trustees shall not exceed one hundred.

3d The Mayor and Recorder of the city to be ex-offido members of the
Board of Trustees.

4th. One fourth of the whole number of trustees being present at any
meeting of the board to constitute a quorum.

5th. Any person paying ten dollars to the treasury, for the benefit of the
schools, to become, by virtue thereof, a member of the Society for life.

6t7i. The real estate belonging to the Free-School Society to be conveyed
(subject to the incumbrances now on it) by said Society to the Corporation,
and by the Corporation a lease thereof to be granted to the Public School
Society in perpetuity, or so long as they shall use it for the sole purpose of
promoting common school education in this city.

1th. The real estate of the African schools to be also conveyed to the
Corporation, and leased, as above, to the Public School Society, and those
schools to be immediately transferred to the charge of said Society.

8th. The schools of " The Female Association " to be taken under the
care and control of the Public School Society, and that Association to in-
crease the number of its members, and, in future, act as auxiliary to the
Society in the care of all the female schools.

9th. The whole amount of the school fund to be paid annually to the
New York Public School Society.

IQth. The Society shall pay over to the Orphan Asylum and Mechanics
School, $1.50 per scholar for all children gratuitously educated by them.

11th. To facilitate the operations of the Society, and to excite emulation
among the trustees, the latter shall be divided into as many sections as there
may be school-houses, and each section be attached to a particular school.
The sectional boards to have the immediate care and management of the
schools, but the general regulations for all the schools to be made by the
meeting of all the sections.

The sectional boards to meet monthly at the school-rooms, to appoint
school committees, and to attend to the concerns of their several schools.

The trustees generally to meet statedly once a quarter, and on special
occasions, when deemed necessary.

94 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

At each stated meeting of the general board the several sections shall
report on the state of their schools, and their reports shall contain a con-
densed view of their minutes, and those of the school committees.

A committee shall be appointed at each stated meeting of the trustees,
to visit, during the succeeding quarter, all the schools under the care of the
Society, and to report on their situation at the subsequent meeting.

The annual report of the trustees to the Society shall also be submitted
to the Corporation and Legislature.

In the event of this plan being adopted by the board, and subsequently
receiving the sanction of the Corporation, the only alteration necessary
(though others may be convenient) in the late law relative to the school
fund, is in that section requiring that the subjects of gratuitous instruction
only be reported to the commissioners. It will be recollected that, although
the Public School Society will be an independent body so far as it respects
the management of the schools, they will always be subject to the Corpora-
tion, as their funds will be at the pleasure of that body. And the commis-
sioners will be an intermediate body of general inspectors, independent of
the Society, and reporting to the Corporation and Superintendent of Com-
mon Schools. The new interest which would be excited among our citizens
by the proposed plan, and the reduction of the life subscription to so low a
sum as $10, would probably induce a great number to become members of a
Society which already counts upon its list about five hundred of our most
respectable citizens.

By the Committee.

NEW YOBK, January 2&lh, 1825.

Estimates of the revenue and expenses of the Public School Society,
predicated on the whole of the school fund being paid to said Society annu-
ally, and on its schools becoming low-priced pay schools :

The simple calculation is, that each school will more than half support
itself by the pay derived from the scholars, and that a considerable part of
the school fund may therefore be annually applied to the purchase of lots
and erection of new school-houses.

The school-houses now belonging to the Free-School So-
ciety will accommodate, according to the usual aver-
age attendance, 7,000 scholars,

And the two African school-houses, .... 1,000 "

8,000 "

So that the Society, on the plan proposed, will have sufficient room imme-
diately for all the children that may probably be transferred during the first
year to its schools from others, in consequence of the proposed change, and
can educate them at but little additional expense.

Suppose the Public School Society to have, during its first year, 8,000
scholars, including the colored children, and nearly all of them to be of the
description of children now attending the free and charity schools :

REORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM.

The annual expense of all the

schools of the Society, with 5,209 scholars, was, last year, $10,000

Add the annual expense of the

African schools, . . . 843 "

Add the annual expense of the

Female Association, . - 543 "

Add the annual expense for chil-
dren from other schools, . 1,405 "

say
say
say

1,800

1,200

500

8,000

$13,500

$17,000
$3,500

Which gives, for the expenses of the first year, ....
And the revenue of the Society during the same period will be :
From the school fund, .... $14,000
Less appropriation to the Orphan Asylum

and Mechanics' School, . . . 500

$13,500

State annuity from city excise fund, . . . . 1,500

Lotteries, 1,500

Rents, &c., - . 500

Leaving a balance in favor of the Society, without pay from

scholars, of

But the 8,000 children would probably pay, viz. :

1,000, $0,000

2,000, at 12 cts. per quarter, per annum, . . ' . 1,000

4,000, at 25 cts 4,000

1,000, at 50 cts. . V .".'? . ".-' 2,000

$7,000

Giving a balance of receipts over expenditures amounting to $10,500

As the receipts and expenses for the second year may be estimated the
same as those of the first, for the same schools, the whole of the balance of
the first year may be applied toward the purchase of lots and erection of a
new school-house.

In the new schools, a greater proportion of scholars will doubtless be
admitted, who are willing and able to pay.

The annual expense of each new school of 800 children will be :

For teachers, male, $900, and female, $350, and monitors, $150, $1,400
Stationery, fuel, &c., 300

And the receipts, viz. :

From 400 scholars, 25 cts. per quarter,

From 400 " 50 "

$400
800

$1,700

1,200

Balance against school, . ... . . . $500

96 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

In the new schools, the children will thus pay an amount equal to two
thirds of the whole expenses.

From the preceding estimates, it appears that the Public School Society
could, without resorting to loans or other sources of revenue, go on continu-
ally adding to the number of its school-houses. But probably not faster
than the wants of the city will require ; for it should be remembered that
there are now 7,000 children not in a course of education, and that the
population of New York is increasing very rapidly.

This report was widely read and approved.
The bill passed by the Legislature, November 19th, 1824,
authorized the Common Council to appoint ten school commis-
sioners, and to designate the schools which should participate in
the school fund, and directed the first appointment to be made in
January, 1825. Accordingly, the Mayor, Hon. Wm. Paulding,
Jr., informed the Common Council of the requirements of the
law ; and, upon motion of Alderman Mason, at the session held
on January 17th, the following-named gentlemen were ap-
pointed :

First Ward, .... OLIVER H. HICKS.

Second " ... JACOB DEAKE.

Third " JOHN ADAMS.

Fourth " ... HIRAM KETCHUM.

Fifth " GIDEON TUCKER.

Sixth " ... SAMUEL ACKERLY.

Seventh " DAVID LYON.

Eighth " ... PETER H. WENDOVER.

Ninth " GEORGE S. DOUGHTY.

Tenth " ... JOSEPH PIGGOTT.

The consideration of the fourth section of the law was re-
ferred to the Committee on Laws.* The general plans recom-
mended in the printed report on reorganization being regarded
with much favor by many prominent men of the city conversant
with school interests, and the trustees being informed that the
Law Committee were prepared to entertain the propositions,
Isaac Collins, Robert C. Cornell, and Lindley Murray were ap-
pointed to confer with them on the whole question.

At the meeting of the Common Council held on May 4th, a
letter from the secretary of the Free- School Society, on the sub-
ject of extending instruction to the poor children of the city
who were not included in the charity schools of religious socie-

* Sse Appendix A.

COLONEL HENRY RUT&ERS

MONEYS FOR SECTARIAN SCHOOLS. 97

ties, was read, accompanied with specimens of the penmanship
of pupils. The papers were referred to the Law Committee. A
brief report from that committee was submitted on May 11, ap-
proving and recommending the Free-School Society to the confi-
dence and support of the- public.

At the meeting of the Common Council held on April 25,
Alderman Cowdrey moved that the law relative to the distribu-
tion of school moneys be taken up ; but the motion was nega-
tived, and the law was made the special order for the following
Thursday. At the same meeting, a petition was presented from
the trustees of St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. Peter's Church
for an apportionment of school moneys, and laid on the table.

On Thursday, the 28th, on motion of Alderman Cowdrey,
the special order was taken up for consideration. The petition
of the trustees of the Roman Catholic churches was read, and
the law reported by the committee was also read. The first sec-
tion of the law was as follows :

Be it ordained, by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city of
New York, in common council convened, pursuant to the authority vested
in them by the act of the Legislature of the State of New York, entitled
" An Act relating to Common Schools in the City of New York," passed
Nov. 19, 1824, that the institutions which shall be entitled to receive of the
commissioners of the common school fund, payable to and raised in the
said city, are hereby designated to be, the Free-School Society of New
York, the Mechanics' Society, the Orphan Asylum Society, and the trustees-
of the African free schools.

Mr. Philip Hone, of the Board of Assistants, moved to
amend, by adding, after the words " trustees of the African free
schools," the following :

And the trustees of such incorporated religious societies in said city aa
support or shall establish charity schools, who may apply ;

Provided, That the religious societies above named shall not be allowed
to receive pay for any scholars except those whose parents or guardians are
in the habit of attending their respective places of worship.

After some discussion, Mr. Hone called for a division of 'the
question, and it resulted as follows :

Ayes Aldermen Wyckoff and Reed, and Assistant Alder-
man Hone 3.

Nays Richard Riker, Recorder, Aldermen King, Ireland,

98 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 8OCIETV.

Cowdrey, Webb, Mann, Taylor, and Ostrander, and Assistant
Aldermen Bolton, St. John, Agnew, Burtsell, and Cox 13.

The board then passed to the consideration of the bill by
paragraphs, and it was agreed to, signed, and passed, under the
title of " A Law regulating the distribution of the Common
School Fund in the City of New York."

On the 26th of September, the report of the Law Committee
was called up, and made the special order at the next meeting
of the board, October 10 ; at which time, after some discussion,
it was made the order for the following meeting.

On the 24th, the special order was resumed, and, after debate
and amendment, the recommendations of the committee were
adopted, as follows :

IN COMMON COUNCIL, October 24, 1825.

The Committee on Laws, to whom was referred the report of a commit-
tee of the Trustees of the Free-School Society on the distribution of the
common school fund, proposing a change in the constitution of that Society,
so as to admit children of all classes to their schools, for a compensation not
exceeding one dollar per quarter, with power to remit the charge in proper
cases ; and to whom was also referred a communication from Aaron Ely,
proposing the establishment of public schools in this city, report :

That the distribution of the common school fund in this city is at pres-
ent confined to those only who are the subjects of a gratuitous education.
The necessary operation of this limitation is the rejection from the free
schools and other institutions participating in this fund, of the children of
those who can pay for schooling, and the admission of such only as are un-
able to pay. The consequences are, that the children of poverty and want
are left to form a community by themselves, and that the classes above them
in point of circumstances, but whose parents or guardians are not of suffi-
cient ability amply to provide for them, are omitted as objects of the public
care and bounty in the invaluable objects of literary and elementary instruc-
tion.

To obviate these privations, so injurious in their nature and effects, by
breaking down the distinctions that now divide these portions of the rising
generation, and to promote their mutual benefit by instructing them to-
gether, as children of the poor citizens of an enlightened and growing
republic, in the great and fundamental principles of knowledge and virtue,
and thus fitting them for a course of future usefulness, as a task worthy the
solicitude and exertions of our benevolent and public-spirited citizens.

The following are suggested as the outlines of a general plan for effect-
ing this important object, viz. :

L The title of the Free-School Society to be changed to that of " The
New York Public School Society," and its charter to be so amended that
children of all classes may be admitted to the schools, and required to pay

REORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM. 99

for their instruction according to the branches they may learn, but not ex-
ceeding one dollar per quarter, in advance. The trustees to have power to
remit the charge in such cases as they may deem proper.

II. Fifty trustees to be elected by the Society at their annual meeting ;
and the trustees so elected to have power to add to their number, provided
the whole number of trustees shall not exceed one hundred.

HI. The Mayor and Recorder of the city to be ex-officio members of the
Board of Trustees.

IV. One fourth of the whole number of trustees being present at any
meeting of the board to form a quorum.

V. Any person paying ten dollars to the treasury, for the benefit of the
schools, to become, by virtue thereof, a member for life.

VL The real estate of the Free-School Society, and of the African
schools, to be conveyed, subject to the existing encumbrances, by the said
societies to this corporation, and a lease thereof to be granted by them to
the Public School Society, in perpetuity, or so long as they shall exist for
the sole purpose of promoting common school education in this city.

VII. The whole amount of the school fund to be distributed to the said
Public School Society, and such auxiliary institutions as shall be sanctioned
by the Common Council.

The advantages which may be expected from the proposed alterations,
in addition to those first suggested, are :

I. Experienced and well-qualified teachers, who shall be duly compen-
sated for the employment of their time and talents.

II. Convenient, spacious, and well-accommodated school-houses, combin-
ing the advantages of cleanliness, light, and air.

HI. Uniformity in the systems and modes, and in the books and subjects
of instruction.

IV. In respect to the small payments which alone are to be allowed, and
which are never to be required in cases of inability or inconvenience to make
them, the expected advantages are : First, a great increase of the amount to
be received and expended for public instruction. Second, the inculcation
of the valuable principle, that every person is bound to render some return
for services performed for himself or his family. Third, an increased inter-
est on the part of the parents in the education of their children, and their
due preparation for and their punctual attendance at school, connected with
the encouragement of a laudable share of pride, emulation, and indepen-
dence of character, in both parents and children. And fourth, from the
consideration of the renewed obligation under which children will be placed
to their parents, that they will be more practically instructed in the great
commandment which says, " Honor thy father and thy mother."

V. A new impulse will be excited, and a more general attention be pro-
duced among our citizens at large, in favor of the all-important subject of
elementary education.

VI. Harmony will be produced among religious sects, and, at last, all
causes of disagreement will be removed, as all will be interested where all
alike contribute to the great and common object.

100 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

In proof of the practicability of the plan now suggested, your commit-
tee have ascertained that in Great Britain a similar method has been attend-
ed with success, as will be seen in the eighteenth report of the British and
Foreign School Society. And your committee have been furnished with a
letter from Mr. Charles E. "Webster, dated Albany, 25th of April, 1825, to Mr.
Isaac Collins, of our city, from which they have his permission to make the
following extracts :

I have examined the minute-book of the Albany Lancaster school in
relation to the admission of pay scholars. We have but a single by-law on
the subject, which requires that all children, on admittance into the school,
shall pay in advance from twenty-five cents to one dollar and twenty-five
cents per quarter, according to the ability of their parents or guardians,
always excepting the children of such poor persons as are unable to pay ;
and those of this class have in all cases a preference, and are never refused
on any account whatever.

We have never met with any difficulty in the school in respect to the
scholars paying, or not paying. Each child has equal rights and privileges ;
and though the government of the school requires order and submission, it
is otherwise a perfect democracy. Each child rises or falls from his own
merit or demerit, and no regard is ever paid to the standing of the parent
% or guardian. We have never found any difficulty on this subject.

Your committee, with the utmost brevity, remark in addition, that the
common school fund is appropriated in the other counties of the State with
the greatest advantage to the support of common or public schools ; and
the prosperity and unrivalled eminence of some of the Eastern States in
their elementary and public schools, and in the consequent dissemination of
useful knowledge among all classes of their citizens, are matters of notori-
ety and sources of gratification to themselves and their fellow-citizens.

And while, in other States, and in other parts of our own State, the
advantages of literary and scientific instruction are scattered as far and as
widely as possible, and the policy appears to be adopted that education
should be as diffusive as civil liberty that it should be made to expand
with the increase of population as the surest guarantee of political happi-
ness and that, with the effort to extend the right of suffrage, and render it
universal, the influences of an education as salutary and as universal should
accompany this right as its correlative and best regulating power, your com-
mittee will respectfully suggest that the establishment of a similar policy as
applicable to our city is deserving the efforts of this board, of our liberal
institutions, and, indeed, of every citizen.

The committee therefore recommend to the board the following resolu-
tions :

I. Resolved, That this board approves of the establishment of public
schools in this city on the principles above suggested, instead of free
schools.

II. llfsolted, That this board recommend that a memorial be submitted
to the next Legislature by the said Free-School Society (as they propose),
for effecting the above object, and for securing the lands and buildings now
belonging to the Free- School Society and the African schools in this city as

THE NEW SCHOOL LAW. 101

public or common schools, and also for securing the proportion of the com-
mon school fund, to which this city is or shall be entitled, to the general
purposes of education, and for the support of public or common schools,
subject to any future alterations which the Legislature may deem proper ;
Provided, that the details be first considered by the committee of this board,
the Commissioners of the School Fund, and the Trustees of the Free- School
Society, and that they report such details for the consideration of the board.
Respectfully submitted, S. COWDREY,

TIIOS. BOLTON,
E. W. KINO.

On the 2d of November, the Board of Trustees appointed
Isaac Collins, Benjamin Clark, James I. Roosevelt, Jr., Robert
C. Cornell, and Lindley Murray a- committee to prepare a me-
morial, a draft of a law, and a detailed plan of operations, to
correspond with the new scheme, if enacted by the Legislature.

A special meeting of the Society was held on the llth of
November, to consider the measures proposed by the Board of
Trustees, and resolutions were unanimously adopted in favor of
their action, and directing that the board proceed with their
appeal to the Legislature for a new charter. The committee
acted with great diligence and intelligence in the matter, and
all opposition being overcome, and the details of the law having
been made complete, it w r as passed on the 28th of January,
1826. The law, being of unusual importance in the course of
legislation on popular instruction in New York, is here inserted :

AN ACT

In relation to the Free-School Society of New YorTc, passed January 28th, 1826.

Whereas the trustees of said Society have presented to the Legislature a
memorial requesting certain alterations in their act of incorporation, There-
fore,

Be it enacted by the people of the State of New York, represented in
Senate and Assembly, that the said Society shall hereafter be known by the
name of the PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY of New York.

And le it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of said Society to
provide, so far as their means may extend, for the education of all children
in the city of New York not otherwise provided for, whether such children
be or be not the proper objects of gratuitous education, and without regard
to the religious sect or denomination to which such children or their parents
may belong.

And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for the trustees to
require of the pupils received^ into the schools under their charge a cyder-
ate compensation, adapted to the ability of the parents of such pupils, to
be applied to the erection of school-houses, the payment of the teachers'
salaries, and to the defraying of such other expenses as may be incident to

102 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the education of children ; Provided, That such payment or compensation
may be remitted by the trustees, in all cases in which they shall deem it
proper to do so ; and, Provided, further, That no child shall be denied the
benefits of the said institution, merely on the ground of inability to pay for
the same, but shall at all times be freely received and educated by the said
trustees.

And be it further enacted, That nothing in this act contained shall be con-
strued to deprive the said Society of any . revenues, or of any rights to
which they are now, or, if this act had not been passed, would have been
by law entitled, and that the receipts of small payments from the scholars
shall not preclude the trustees from drawing from the common school fund
for all the children educated by them.

And be it further enacted, That the trustees shall have power from time
to time to establish in the said city such additional schools as they may
deem expedient.

And be it further enacted, That any person paying to the treasurer of said
Society, for the use of said Society, the sum of ten dollars, shall become a
member thereof for life.

And be it further enacted, That the annual meetings of the said Society
shall hereafter be h'eld on the second Monday in May in each year.

And be it further enacted, That the number of trustees to be chosen by
the Society, at and after the next annual meeting, shall be increased to fifty,
who at any legal meeting of the board may add to their number, but so as
not in the whole to exceed one hundred, exclusive of the Mayor and Re-
corder of the city, who are hereby declared to be ex-officio members of the
Board of Trustees.

And be it further enacted, That the stated meetings of the board shall be
held quarterly, that is to say, on the first Fridays of February, May, August,
and November in each year ; Provided, That an extra stated meeting shall
be held on the Friday next following the annual meeting in each year, for
the purpose of organizing the new board, and transacting any other neces-
sary business.

And be it further enacted, That one fourth of the whole number of trus-
tees for the time being shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of busi-
ness at any legal meeting of the board.

And be it further enacted, That the said Society is hereby authorized to
convey their school edifices, and other real estate, to the Mayor, Aldermen,
and Commonalty of the city of New York, upon such terms and conditions,
and in such forms, as shall be agreed upon between the parties, taking back
from the said Corporation a perpetual lease thereof, upon condition that the
same shall be exclusively and perpetually applied to the purposes of education.

State of New York, }
Secretary's Office. \

Icertify the preceding to be a true copy of an original act of the Legis-
lature of this State, on file in this office.

ALBART, January 28tb, 1826.

(Signed) ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, Dep. Secretary.

REORGANIZATION OF THE SYSTEM. 103

The announcement of the passage of the act was received
with great satisfaction by the board, and the following rqsolu-
tions were adopted :

Resolved, 1st. That the Committee on Public Schools be dis-
charged, and that the thanks of the board be presented to Isaac
Collins, one of their number, for his active and efficient agency
at Albany in procuring the passage of the law amending our
charter, and that the treasurer be directed to pay his bill of ex-
penses.

2d. That the law be accepted, and that, in accordance there-
with, this Society forthwith assume the name of the PUBLIC
SCHOOL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK.

3d. That a committee of five be appointed to prepare and
report a revised copy of by-laws founded on the new law, and
with such alterations and additions as may appear expedient.

4th. That a committee of three be appointed to look out for
suitable lots for two additional school-houses within the follow-
ing districts, viz., in the rear of the Hospital, between Anthony
and Reade streets, and near the junction of Spring and Macdou-
gal streets.

5th. That a committee of three be appointed on the subject
of the transfer of our real estate to the Corporation, and that
they report their views of the terms on which a conveyance
should be made.

6th. That, until after the next annual election, the board
will continue to meet monthly, as heretofore, for the transaction
of their usual business.

The committees were appointed to the several duties named
in the resolutions, as follows :

To Revise the By-Laws Lindley Murray, R. C. Cornell,
J. E. Hyde, Isaac Collins, and James I. Roosevelt, Jr.

To Select Locations for New Schools Robert C. Cornell,
William "W. Fox, and Isaac Collins.

On Transfer of Real Estate James I. Roosevelt, Jr., Ben-
jamin Clarke, and George T. Trimble.

The long-continued efforts of the Society to secure a just dis-
tribution of the school money, irrespective of sectarian institu-
tions, and to reorganize the system, were thus rewarded with the
seal of legislative approval and authority. The development
of new plans and measures commence the history of a new year.

104 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTEK Y.

HISTORY FROM 1826 TO 1831.

New Schools No. 7 Opened School No. 8 Schools at Harlem, Manhattanville, and
Bloomingdale School No. 9 Columbia College New Locations School No. 10
organized School No. 11 Finances and Attendance High School The Pay
System Lotteries Sunday Scholars Infant Schools Death of the President,
DE WITT CLINTON New Measures Additional Tax Address to the Public
Vagrancy Visitor Samuel W. Seton Memorials Power to Mortgage and Con-
vey Property The New Tax Obtained The Schools of New York City School
No. 12 School No. 13 The School Fund Application of the Roman Catholic
Orphan Asylum.

THE important proceedings during the year 1825, relative to
the reorganization of the system and the prosecution of the steps
necessary to ensure the requisite legislation, did not divert the
attention of the board from those measures which related to the
healthful and immediate expansion of the sphere of labor of the
Society, by the selection of additional sites for school buildings,
and the erection of substantial and commodious edifices thereon.
At the meeting of the board in May, a committee of five, con-
sisting of J. I. Roosevelt, Jr., James F. Depeyster, George T.
Trimble, It. C. Cornell, and Stephen Allen, was appointed, to
select locations for schools, and to report on the expediency of
hiring premises or erecting buildings, to meet the wants of the
city. The committee, having examined several locations, report-
ed, in September, in favor of establishing a school on the east
side of Chrystie street, between Hester and Pump (afterward
called Walker) streets, where three lots could be procured for
fifteen hundred dollars each. A location in the rear of Trinity
Church was .also recommended, if the premises could be pro-
cured from the corporation of the church by a permanent lease,
and, if possible, a purchase of the property. The committee
reported resolutions authorizing the purchase of the lots in
Chrystie street, and the appointment of a building committee to

NEW SCHOOLS. 105

superintend the erection of a proper house. The resolutions
were adopted, and William. "W. Fox, James Palmer, and Isaac
Collins were selected as the Building Committee, who were
directed to obtain plans and estimates for the erection of a
school-house, which should be similar to No. 5, with the excep-
tion of a cellar instead of a basement.

On the 23d of September, the committee reported the plans
and estimates for a house, which should be 40 by 80 feet, with
furniture, fences, and other requisites, at a cost of $9,500. The
report was adopted, and the committee directed to proceed with
the erection of the building. The house was built, and opened
as Public School No. 7, on the 1st of May, 1826, with eighty-
seven pupils, under the care of STEPHEN R. KIBBY.

In April, the Committee on Locations reported in favor of
purchasing three lots of ground in Grand street, between Woos-
ter and Laurens streets, for $5,000. The board approved the
recommendation of the committee, and appointed Isaac Collins,
George T. Trimble, William W. Fox, and Eobert C. Cornell to
procure plans and estimates. They were submitted on the 29th
of the same month, and approved ; and Messrs. W. W. Fox,
Isaac Collins, and James Palmer were appointed the Building
Committee. The house was opened on the 1st of November,
under the care of Mr. C. B. SHERMAN, Principal, and filled so
rapidly, that, on the 1st of April following, there were 371 boys
and 264 girls in attendance.

At the meeting of the board held in May, Messrs. Stephen
Allen and James F. Depeyster stated that there were two or
three school districts in Manhattan ville, Harlem, and Blooming-
dale, which were entitled by law to certain moneys the pro-
ceeds of the sale of the Harlem Commons and they suggested
the propriety of a conference with the parties interested in those
schools with reference to a scheme of transfer, by which they
might be placed under the jurisdiction of the Society. Messrs.
Stephen Alleti, James F. Depeyster, and George T. Trimble
were assigned the duty of making the requisite inquiries, and on
the 12th of the same month they reported in general terms rela-
tive to the schools, but particularly with reference to that at
Bloomingdale. They offered resolutions for the recognition of
the school as one.of those under the care of the Society, and
providing for the selection and temporary appointment of a

106 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

teacher, at a salary of thirty dollars a month. The resolutions
were adopted, and the school, which had been under the care of
the vestry of St. Michael's Church (Episcopal), became known
as Public School No. 9. Jotham Wilson, a pupil who had for
several years been a monitor-general, was selected as teacher.

The expenses of the Society for the fiscal year had been
$47,344.99, leaving a balance in the treasury to the new account
of $6,235.51. The annual exhibit showed the average attend-
ance of pupils to be 5,170, of whom about three fifths were boys
and two fifths were girls.

The Society having at that time no convenient place of
meeting, an application was made to the Trustees of Columbia
College, who courteously granted the use of their hall for the
meetings of the Society.

The Committee on New Locations reported, on the 8th of
September, in favor of purchasing three lots of ground in Woos-
ter street, between Houston and Bleecker streets, and also three
'lots in Anthony, near Hudson street, and recommended the erec-
tion of a house on the lots in Anthony street. The resolutions
to purchase land were adopted, but the recommendation to build
was laid on the table. In November, the committee reported a
new location in Church street, between Duane and Thomas
streets, which, however, was not adopted. In January, 1827,
they reported favorably upon a location in Duane street, near
Hudson, the price for which would be $8,300, and a dower right
of $50 per annum in favor of a lady then sixty-eight years of
age. The location was approved, and the usual steps directed
to be taken to complete the purchase ; and the Building Com-
mittee was authorized to proceed with the preliminary measures
to provide for the erection of an edifice. The house was com-
pleted, and opened as No. 10, on the 1st of November, 1827.
Contracts were directed to be made for the building of No. 11,
in Wooster street (which was completed and opened on the 15th
of September, 1828), and the purchase of ground for No. 9, at
Bloomingdale, and the erection of a frame house of two stories
thereon. Four lots in Bloomingdale were purchased for $250,
two of them being granted as a donation. These measures were
severally prosecuted with promptitude and fidelity.

The annual report of the treasurer exhibited the fact that the
expenditures of the Society had been $64,724.79. leaving a bal-

LOTTERIES. 107

ance to new account of $5,480.69, with an average attendance
of 5,030 pupils. Of the amount expended, about $26,000 were
paid for buildings and lots of ground.

The close of the year 1826, and the early part of 1827, were
partially devoted to the consideration of two important proposi-
tions : 1st, the establishment of a central high school, for the
instruction of monitors and tutors, and as an advanced school
for the reception of pupils from the public schools ; and, 2d, the
question, whether the pay system had been the means of dimin-
ishing the attendance of poor children at the schools. The de-
crease in the number of scholars, as made apparent by the annual
exhibit, presented a fact the very reverse of what had been an-
ticipated. Instead of a considerable increase in numbers with
the more extended facilities and new schools, there had been an
actual diminution. The proceedings relative to these measures
are presented in other pages of this volume.

The great evils of the system of gambling known as lotteries,
had become manifest to the trustees, and they earnestly sought
to have such a law enacted as would restrict, if not entirely pro-
hibit, the traffic in lottery tickets. The Society received a con-
siderable sum annually from the half of the license-tax paid by
the dealers in lottery schemes ; but this did not blind their eyes
to* the fact that the system was pernicious, and should be discon-
tinued. The annual report for the year 1S>27 makes the follow-
ing allusion to this topic :

The subject of lotteries, in which, through the medium of moneys re-
ceived for licenses to sell tickets, they are directly interested, has engaged
much of the serious attention of the trustees. Fully convinced of, and
deeply regretting, the great and increasing evils incident to this legalized
mode of gambling, they have deemed it their incumbent duty to endeavor
to moderate and lessen the mischiefs of this pernicious system, and accord-
ingly directed a committee to prosecute offenders against the provisions of
the old law, which prohibited the selling of tickets in foreign lotteries.
They also presented a memorial to the Legislature, requesting, if they could
not constitutionally abolish the whole system, that such further regulations
might be adopted as appeared necessary for the limitation and curtailment
of the evil. The board exceedingly regret that an act on this subject, which
had passed both branches of the Legislature by large majorities, was nega-
tived by the Executive on the ground of its being unconstitutional. An-
other bill was, however, subsequently introduced, passed, and has become a
law, and which, it is hoped, will prove efficacious in preventing that branch
of the evil arising from the sale of tickets in lotteries not authorized by this
State.

108 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The same report contains the following statement in regard
to the number of pupils attending school during the year, who
were also regular attendants at Sunday schools or clmrches :

The trustees are aware of the importance of early religious instruction ;
and although the nature of their association and its true interests require
that none but such as is strictly and exclusively general and scriptural in its
character should be introduced into the schools under their charge, they
require from the teachers stated returns of the number of their scholars who
attend at the various Sunday schools, or at places of worship, on the Sab-
bath. The last reports for all schools, except No. 8, show that, on the 1st
of April, of 3,925 children on the registers, 2,463 belonged to Sunday
schools, and of the remainder, 1,142 were attenders at the various places of
worship to which their parents were attached ; leaving but 326 unaccounted
for, or who are negligent in this important duty.

During the month of May, a letter was received from Mrs.
Joanna Betlmne, informing the board that an association of
ladies had been formed for the purpose of establishing an infant
school, and requesting the use of the basement of No. 8, in
Grand street, for the accommodation of the school. The Execu-
tive Committee were authorized to grant the use of such rooms
in the school Buildings as were proper, and not otherwise appro-
priated. This measure laid, the foundation of the very impor-
tant change made in the system soon afterward, by which chil-
dren of three years f age were taught with others in the infant
schools, which became known as Primary Schools or Depart-
ments. The Executive Committee took the whole plan into con-
sideration, and referred the inquiries to a sub-committee, who
presented a report in favor of the system. On the 4th of Feb-
ruary, 1828, this report was submitted to the board, by which
body it was adopted, and referred back to the Executive Com-
mittee, with full power to carry its several recommendations into
effect. This formed the distinguishing feature of the labors of
the board at the commencement of the year 1828.

The Society which had been so long favored with the valu-
able services of many of its original founders, and which still
retained some of the most honorable and useful in its board, was
at last called to mourn the loss of one of the most distinguished
and noble men of the State, who had rendered his name illus-
trious as well for his philanthropy as for his liberal and enlight-
ened policy in all that serves to make the State preeminent for

DEATH OF DE WITT 'CLINTON. 109

its resources, its public works, and its literary institutions. His
Excellency, DE WITT CLINTON, one of the social circle that origi-
nated the free-school system, who had been President of the So-
ciety from the time of its organization, and who was also Gov-
ernor of the State, was called from the scenes of his earthly
labors to his rest and his reward. His death occurred on the
llth of February, and was announced to the board at a special
meeting held on the 15th of that month. Alderman Cowdrey
offered the following preamble and resolutions, which were
unanimously adopted :

The Trustees of the Public School Society, being informed of the sud-
den decease of his Excellency, DE WITT CLINTON, who, among his other
testimonials of public esteem and confidence, has held the office of Presi-
dent of this Society from its first organization,

Hesolved, As the sense of this board, that, while it is our duty to bend
with unmurmuring submission to the will of Divine Providence, we view
this event as a signal calamity to our country, to the cause of science and
public improvement, and the many useful institutions of which the deceased
was a distinguished ornament and patron. That he occupied a large place
in the affection and respect of his countrymen, as one of the most able and
successful benefactors ; and that, as connected with this and similar associa-
tions, the cause of literature and benevolence has sustained in his death an
unspeakable and irreparable loss.

This resolution was not one of mere eulogy, but was warrant-
ed by the great public services of the late President, to whose
influence and labors the Society was largely indebted for its suc-
cess, and the extension of its means and its sphere of labor. He
was succeeded in -the office of President by Col. HENEY RUT-
GEES, who was chosen at the annual election in the month of
May following.

The increase in the population of the city, and the demand
for more extensive facilities for instructing children not other-
wise provided for, together with the fact that the pay system
was found to disappoint the generous expectations of the board,
combined to renew the anxiety of the Society for such an im-
provement and reorganization of the system as would meet all
the requirements of the metropolis, and whose expansion should
correspond with that of the city itself, until it should compre-
hend the children of every class, and thus promote a harmonious
intermingling of the youth of the community, as a social and
public benefaction.

110 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The Executive Committee made these measures a subject of
earnest consideration, and, at the February meeting, submitted
a report to the board, together with an address to the public,
relative thereto. The report recommended an additional tax of
half a mill on a dollar on the real and personal estate in the city
and count} 7 , which, at the valuation of that year, would have
yielded about $50,000. This sum, with the income enjoyed by
the Society at the time, it was estimated would be sufficient to
add three new school-houses annually to the number in existence,
and enable the Society to educate all classes free of expense, as
well as to establish a high school and an academy, or classical
seminary, for the preparation of teachers. The report is sub-
stantially incorporated, in its arguments and facts, in the address
to the public which was submitted at the same time, and which
was ordered to be printed and circulated. This address develops
the germ of many of the plans and measures which have since
that time been made a part of the system of popular education
in the city, and is valuable as a presentation of the philanthropic
and enlarged views which were realized years afterward in part
by the Society, but more fully under the change of system in
1842, when the Board of Education was organized. For these
reasons, as well as for its own interest, the address is here in-
serted :

ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC.

The Trustees of the Public School Society feel constrained to appeal to
their fellow-citizens upon the importance of enlarging the means of com-
mon education. A full knowledge of our condition cannot but produce a
universal conviction that our present system of instruction is inadequate to
our wants.

There is no part of our State which has the means of more ample endow-
ments for public instruction, nor is there any part of it where the common
welfare, not to say the common safety, so imperatively demands them ; and
yet we are compelled to confess that there is not within the State a single
district of any magnitude with which we could institute a favorable com-
parison.

It is an object of primary importance to ascertain, as nearly as may be,
the number of our children within the proper ages for instruction, who are
entirely destitute of it. It is impossible, with the data which we possess,
to arrive at a precisely accurate result ; but it will be perceived by the fol-
lowing statement, that if we have fallen into an error, it is not that of ex-
aggeration.

Provision is made by law for ascertaining, in all other parts of the State,
the number of children between the ages of 5 and 15, and also the whole

ADDBES8 TO THE PUBLIC. Ill

number annually instructed ; and it is much to be regretted that it does not
extend to this city. It appears, by the report of the Secretary of State for
1827, that, in other parts of the State, the ratio of scholars in the public
and other schools to the whole population was 1 to 5, 1 to 4. and 1 to 3 ;
and that these are about the average ratios which prevail throughout the
State, with the exception of this city. In this city, this ratio is less than 1
to 7, supposing the population to have advanced with the same rapidity
since 1825 as in the preceding five years.

If we adopt for our city the proportion furnished by the above report,
and founded upon actual official returns, between the whole population and
the children within the ages above mentioned, the result will be, that we
had 45,300 of these children in 1825, when our population was but 166,000.
If the increase of our population since 1825 has been in the same ratio as
from 1820 to 1825, we must add to this number of children more than 7,000,
making the whole number 52,300. About 10,000 children are taught at our
public and charity schools. It was ascertained by a committee of teachers,
about four or five years since, that we had 200 male schools. It is a liberal
allowance to suppose the female schools equally numerous. If we add to
these numbers 100 schools, and allow 35 scholars to each school which we
are persuaded is an over-estimate we have 17,500 for the private schools.*

We have no means of ascertaining the number of Sunday scholars who
go to no other schools ; but it is evident that this number cannot be large,
because the whole number of scholars in the Sunday schools does not exceed
that in the public schools by more than 2,000, and because we know that a
large proportion of Sunday scholars attend private schools.

From the best inquiries we have been able to make, the number of those
scholars who attend no other schools does not exceed one in twenty, or 600
in the whole.

The result of these estimates is, that we have twenty-four thousand two
hundred children, within the ages of 5 and 15, who attend no school what-
ever.

' A large number of children, principally boys, are taken from school as
soon as they arrive at 14, and some even at 12 years of age, to be bound out
to service, and others are withdrawn even at 10 years of age, for other pur-
' poses. If we allow one half of the whole number above mentioned to have
been withdrawn from school before the age of 15 though perhaps one
third would be nearer the truth the result will be as follows :

Whole number of children between 5 and 15 years' of age, . 52,300
" attending public schools, . . . 10,000

" private schools, ' . . 17,500

*' " Sunday schools not before included, 600

" withdrawn before the age of 15, . . 12,100

40,200

Leaving 12,100

* This estimate corresponds with the opinions of those best acquainted with this
subject.

112 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

TWELVE THOUSAND CHILDREN, between five and fifteen years of ago,
entirely destitute of the means of instruction !

This computation leaves out of view all those children of tenderer years
who ought to be introduced into infant schools.

The diversity, magnitude, and character of our population give to this
subject a deeper interest here than it can have elsewhere. The single fact
that 20,000 emigrants arrived within our city during the past year, presents
this subject in a sufficiently striking point of view.

Believing that the relative importance of our city in the State and
national councils that the security of our rights, of our property, nay, of
our lives, depends upon the character of the people, and essentially upon
their intelligence, the trustees cannot, under the present state of things, sup-
press their anxiety and alarm.

In many of our sister States, the deep interest of the people in common
education may be traced back to the very fountain of their earliest institu-
tions. They regarded the proposition, that our republican institutions rest
upon the general intelligence and virtue of the people, as something more
than a mere theory. In our own State, the towns in the several counties
have been authorized to provide, by taxation, for the erection of school-
houses, and " for fuel and appendages," and have also been empowered to
levy, in the same way, a limited amount annually over and above the sum
necessary, to secure a participation in the common school fund. In the city
of New York there is no legal provision whatever for the support of com-
mon schools, except from the State fund ; and that is on the condition that
the city shall raise an amount equal to that received.

It is time for us to pause, and inquire "whether this subject has yet
received the consideration to which it is entitled, and whether our public
schools occupy their merited station among our political institutions.

It appears to the trustees that the due order of things has been inverted
that our common schools are not the proper objects of a parsimonious
policy, but are entitled to an endowment not less munificent than the best
of our institutions. Neither the sick nor the destitute have higher claims
upon us than the ignorant. The want of knowledge is the most imperative
of all wants, for it brings all others in its train. If education be regarded
as a charity, it is the only one whose blessings are without alloy. It de-
mands no jealous scrutiny as to the claims of its applicants, nor does it
require to be so stinted as not to multiply their number. The obligations
which rest upon us in regard to this great interest, both as men and Chris-
tians, are sufficiently obvious and imposing. To these are to be added the
peculiar claims which are addressed to us as the citizens of a free country.
If we would preserve our free institutions, the means of education must be
coextensive with the right of suffrage.

Although the knowledge of an individual may not always be accompa-
nied with corresponding virtue, yet we hold it to be certain that, politically
considered, the community will always be more or less virtuous as they are
more or less enlightened. All private interests harmonize in the public
good ; and the more clearly this is perceived, the more will a single view to

ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC. 113

the public welfare be regarded as the test of public spirit, and the just
measure of popular favor.

If it be not true that the political power of the people is generally em-
ployed for what seems to them their own good, we must abandon all the
theories of a republican government. If this power be thus employed, we
need only enlighten the mind which directs it, and it is our fault if it be
not found on the side of virtue and patriotism. Let it not be supposed that
we would separate the power of knowledge from that of morals and re-
ligion. The remarks we have made we wish to be understood as applied to
the people in their civil relations. But if we go further, and regard religion
and morals as the highest objects of education, as they truly are, it certainly
will not be denied that education furnishes the principal, and almost the
sole means, of their diffusion.

On the other hand, let it be remembered that the uneducated and unen-
lightened must necessarily be the mere playthings and tools of political
ambition. Those base men who pervert their station, or abuse the public
confidence for private purposes, have nothing to fear but from just sentiment
and enlightened opinion. Prejudice and ignorance are the very elements
from which proceed all popular error, confusion, and violence. It is the
business of education to purify this atmosphere and to drive out the pesti-
lence. The hand which perchance may wield the public destinies, is noth-
ing in itself; it is the terrible engine which it puts in motion which alone is
to be dreaded.

It may not be without just cause that, in some other countries, it is con-
sidered a dangerous thing to enlighten the people. But with us, the ques-
tion of their political power is settled and, if they are true to themselves,
it is settled forever. We wish to keep that power in their hands, and to
enable them to exercise it with wisdom. The laboring classes have been,
justly called the backbone and sinews of the republic. It is not enough
that they know how to read, write, and cast accounts. We wish to provide
for them better excitements than they now have. We wish them to enjoy
the pleasures, as well as other advantages, of intellectual occupation. We
wish them to be able to understand and admire the beneficence of the Cre-
ator in the works of His hands. We wish them to feel that virtue is the
first distinction among men, and knowledge the second, and to be them-
selves the great exemplar of these truths.

Entertaining these views, we hold that there is no object of greater mag-
nitude within the whole range of legislation, no more imperative demand
for public revenue, than the establishment of competent schools and semina-
ries of learning. We hold that, in the nature of things, nothing can be bet-
ter entitled to a share of the public revenue than that from which private
and public wealth derive all their value and security. In short, our schools
are the very foundation upon which rest the peace, good order, and pro&-
perity of society.

It is time to pass from this general view to a more particular considera-
tion of the necessity and nature of the reform which is called for. We con-
8

J 14 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ceive that our present establishments are altogether inadequate to the wants
of the community.

The money expended upon public schools in Boston, in the year 1826,
amounted to upwards of $54,000, exclusive of all expenses of building.
From the best information we can obtain, the expenditures of that city for
the same object, during the past year, amounted to $70,000.

The whole revenue of the Public School Society of New York, exclusive
of about $4,400 received from pay scholars, for the year ending on the 1st
of May last, was less than $20,000. This sum includes all the public moneys
expended upon common schools, except $2,155.50 distributed to the Me-
chanics', the Orphan Asylum, and the Manumission Societies. It would be
a waste of time to attempt to strengthen this statement by any comments
we could make. We shall hereafter point out those particulars in which we
conceive that our plan of public education needs to be enlarged.

We have already stated that our present system does not harmonize with
the spirit of our political institutions. It is well known that the schools of
the Society were formerly exclusively " free schools." It was thought that
a reluctance naturally arising from a general spirit of independence to re-
ceive even instruction as a charity, would exclude many from the benefits of
education.

The removal of this impediment, by receiving compensation from such
as choose to make it, has doubtless been attended with very beneficial conse-
quences. Public instruction has been, to a considerable extent, freed from
its degrading associations with poverty and charity.

Still, these consequences have not been so extensive as was hoped.
About two thirds only of the whole number admitted into our schools are
pay scholars. It is not certain what portion of these would have been
excluded if the old system had continued.

It is now in the power of the public to remedy this evil entirely, and to
iutroduce a corresponding benefit, which the pay system was never compe-
tent, nor even designed, to produce.

We desire to see our public schools so endowed and provided, that they
shall be equally desirable for all classes of society. To effect this, the means
of instruction which are offered to the poor should be the very best which
can be provided. They may not all be able to proceed so far in the path of
learning as others in happier circumstances. But to the extent of their
progress let them have all the helps which the present state of knowledge
affords. This is no mere fanciful theory. The advantages of a free inter-
course and competition betw.een persons of all ranks and conditions in life,
as exhibited in the Edinburgh High School, have been admirably illustrated
by one of the first British orators of the age. He regarded such an institu-
tion as invaluable in a free State ; because, to use his own language, men of
the highest and lowest rank in the community sent their children there, to
be educated together. The practical beneficence of this system is attested
by the noble institutions of a sister city. It is by such an union and inter-
course that the real worth of outward distinctions is perceived that the
.highest rewards of merit are felt to be equally offered to all that the jeal-

ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC. 115

ousies which are too apt to arise from difference of condition are melted
away, and that the relations which subsist between the different classes of
society are felt to be the relations of mutual advantage and dependence, and
not those of hostility.

We are aware that it will be regarded by many as impracticable, that
these advantages should ever be realized to the full extent we have contem-
plated, under the peculiar local circumstances of this city. This objection
is not without foundation ; but we are satisfied that it will be found to
grow less and less the more our system of education is improved, and that
it will be principally confined to the lower schools. But if it be admitted
that an equal distribution of the blessings of education to all classes of
society can never be realized, this surely does not lessen its importance to
those who cannot receive it without our aid.

If we would make our schools what they ought to be, we must offer
higher rewards for the qualifications of teachers. The dignity of the office
of teacher has been too often measured by the subjects of instruction. It
lias been thought that those pursuits which are level to the capacities of
boys do not require the talents which are called forth by the active compe-
tition of men. This estimate proceeds, in part, from the idea that educa-
tion consists in teaching certain truths, as it were, by rote ; whereas its high-
est office is to instil principles and call forth the powers to instruct us how
to think to teach its pupils how to make that which they derive from other
sources their own, not by the mere tenure of memory, but by incorporating
it with the very substance and strength of their faculties.

We hasten to present to the public some changes in our system which
we think necessary, and others which we hope to see adopted, sooner or
later.

It is obvious, from what we have already said, that these schools should
be supported from the public revenue, should be public property, and should
be open to all, not as a charity, but as a matter of common right.

We propose that infant schools should be established throughout the
city, to receive children from three to six years of age. The separation of
these from older children is necessary^to prevent disorder, and to economize
time and labor. The instruction of *these children is peculiar ; its expense
is very trifling, and is much more than repaid by the great domestic econ-
omy which results from it. We need not enlarge upon its benefits. It is
obvious that the receptacles of these children must be numerous, and be dis-
persed throughout the city, and that they should be under the charge of
females.

The difficulty of sending very young children to places of instruction is
among the principal obstacles which debar them from its benefits. The
most important consideration respecting these schools is, that they appeal to
parents before they have any apology, or even motive, for keeping their chil-
dren at home, and that, when these children are once in the way of instruc-
tion, they are likely to be kept there.

In the next place, we would greatly enlarge the number of schools in
which a common English education is taught. A very great majority of

116 TUB PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the scholars will leave these schools at the age of 15, or at an earlier period.
These schools should be provided with such means of instruction as are best
calculated to fit their pupils for the various departments of mechanic, mer-
cantile, and agricultural industry. They should be amply provided with
teachers of pure morals and sound learning with men who are capable of
inspiring and directing a just ambition.

The schools above mentioned form the basis of the plan which we pro-
pose ; and until its foundations are firmly and amply laid, we would not
proceed another step. Let these schools be increased and improved, until
they shall be equal to the necessities of the community until all the wants
which are now felt, or which the people can be made to feel, shall be fully
supplied until, if possible, the 12,000 children who can now neither read
nor write shall be gathered into their folds, and until our instruction shall
correspond, both in kind and degree, with the capacities and opportunities
of the people.

About minor points there will, of course, be differences of opinion.
Whether those who may have the means of consulting their inclinations on
this subject shall choose to send their children to the public schools, or not,
is comparatively of no moment. But that ample means and inducements
should be provided for all who would be otherwise destitute, is of the last
importance ; and we trust that, for this object, the opinions and efforts of
all will be united.

Next in importance to this object is the establishment of one or more
high schools, in which should be taught practical mathematics, natural
philosophy, bookkeeping, and, in short, all those branches which are desira-
ble for the active business of life in any of its departments, the learned pro-
fessions excepted.

We would also recommend, if the means to be provided should be suffi-
cient for that purpose, a classical school, in which the ancient and modern
languages should be thoroughly taught.

To all these should be added a seminary for the education of at least
such teachers as are required for common schools.

Thus we should present to the public establishments for education which
would afford ample and permanent encouragement to all the talent of the
community, instead of holding out a short-lived patronage, to be .withdrawn
when most needed which would make that talent public property, and
which would open to universal emulation the path to all public distinctions.

This plan is not without example, and is substantially, with the excep-
tion of a school for teachers, in successful practice in a neighboring city, to
which we have before alluded.

To effect this object, the trustees would recommend a tax of half a mill
upon the dollar on the amount of property in the city, according to its
valuation in the present estimates of assessment. The fund thus to be raised
should be forever kept separate from all other taxes, and sacred to the pur-
poses for which it was created.

It is well known that the estimates just mentioned fall far short of the
actual value of the property embraced in them, and that there is a vast

ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC. 117

amount of property which they do not touch. If no allowance were made
for these circumstances, this tax would amount to 5 cents on $100 to 50
cents on $1,000 to $5 on $10,000. It is true that the poor man, who puts
in 5 cents, has the same direct interest in the fund with the rich man, who
contributes $50 ; but this difference is more than made up by the indirect
advantages of the latter. We submit to the liberal consideration of the
rich, whether their proportion of this money, expended for the purpose of
disseminating wholesome knowledge and pure morals, would not be a profit-
able investment for their children ; and whether their bonds and mortgages
and public stocks are altogether beyond the reach of public opinion, and of
that which must ultimately depend upon public opinion the administra-
tion of the laws ?

We may go still further, and say that, in so far as the expenditure pro-
posed is necessary for the establishment of common or English schools, it is
recommended by the principles of economy, in the strictest sense of that
word. Those who are without education, must always be a degraded caste.
Having no prospect of a material improvement in their condition, they are
without the common incentives to industry, and hardly know what frugal-
ity means. Those who are unacquainted with the habits and pursuits of
humble life, do not know how generally education is connected with inde-
pendence, and the want of it with abject poverty. Add to this that the
caste of which we are speaking for such it unhappily is is necessarily
removed from all wholesome social influences, and that they are the natural
prey of the cunning and profligate, and it will be perceived that, with
regard to a great portion of them, and particularly the children of emi-
grants, we must choose between the expenses of their education and the
cost of their maintenance in our almshouses and penitentiaries. It is proof
enough of this, that, small as is the proportion of those who cannot read
and write to our whole population, they constitute the majority of our con-
victs and paupers.

The more the community is enlightened, the more equally will its bur-
dens be borne. It has not, perhaps, been sufficiently considered by political
economists, that national wealth chiefly proceeds from the activity of mind,
and must, therefore, be proportioned to the extent and universality of its
development. There is a striking illustration of this truth in a lecture not
long since delivered by Baron Dupin before one of the institutes of Paris.
It appears by his statement, that, in some parts of France, those who are
educated are ^ in others, ^, in others, only -^^ part of the whole popu-
lation, and that the national revenue of these districts is nearly in corre-
sponding ratios. Nay, more that these proportions are not materially
varied by the most striking superiority or inferiority of soil and climate.

It may be said that we have mistaken the effect for the cause. Wealth
and education undoubtedly act and react upon each other. But it is certain
that there would be little or no capital without education, and that capital
derives its power of accumulation from education, which points out its uses,
and creates a demand for it.

If it were necessary to add any thing to these considerations, the trustees

118 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

might claim the support of all the middling and even wealthier classes of
society, on the ground of private interest. The amount of their taxes
would be repaid to them fourfold by the greater cheapness of education,
even supposing they were to avail themselves only of the higher schools ;
and it will doubtless be an object of consideration to some individuals of
these classes, that the cheaper education is, the more they can afford to pur-
chase.

It would be impossible, without going too much into detail, to show
iiow great a saving in the expenses, of educating our children would result
from large establishments under a proper superintendence. Suffice it to say,
that, as far as experiments have been made, the results have been greater
and more satisfactory than could have been expected.*

Is it necessary that the trustees should offer any further apology for pro-
posing that a small portion of the public wealth should be devoted to the
great objects of education ? We perceive no evidence of a parsimonious
spirit in our public councils in regard to the ordinary objects of public reve-
nue. There is no lack of taxation for lighting and grading our streets for
our almshouse and penitentiaries. The expenditures for these objects, to
say nothing of the enormous capital invested in these establishments,
amounted, in the year 1826, to upward 0f $196,000. The expenditures for
the same objects, during the past year, amounted to $221,000. We might
refer to inferior objects for proofs of equal public liberality. In short,
whenever revenue is wanted for any purpose deemed important to the com-
fort or character of the city, it is a matter of course to raise it by tax. We
humbly suggest that a similar liberality ought to be shown toward an object
inferior to no other.

We will not anticipate objections. It is impossible that there can be
two parties in this community one in favor of education, and one against
it. We have none among us who are the avowed advocates of popular
ignorance. The blessings of generations yet unborn await the success of
our efforts. In their behalf, as well as our own, we make our solemn appeal
to all classes, in the name of religion, of humanity, and of freedom. We
would say to those who are in the most prosperous conditions of life, that
the best security for their prosperity and their privileges is to be found in
their greatest possible diffusion. To those who belong to its humbler ranks,
we would suggest that no more honorable occasion was ever offered for the
exercise of that political power which our free Constitution has given
equally to all.

The address was printed, and five thousand copies were cir-
culated among the citizens of New York, under the direction of
Messrs. Hem an Averill, Rensselaer Havens, and John R. Hurd.

* The expense of teaching 7,044 pupils in Boston, in 1826, in the public schools,
was $54,417. The expense of 3,392 pupils, in private schools, was $97,395. Some-
thing ought, probably, to be allowed for there being a greater proportion of scholars
in the private than in the public schools engaged in the higher paths of education.

SAMUEL W. SETON. 119

The recommendation of the Executive Committee, that petitions
be circulated among the people, was also adopted, and Messrs.
Erastus Ellsworth, William Howard, and James B. Brinsmade
were appointed a committee to obtain signatures.

The expenditures of the Society for the year amounted to
$41,246.25, and the average attendance of pupils was 6,195.

The large number of vagrant and truant children, who spent
their time\ in the streets and around the wharves of the city,
indulging in idle and vicious habits, had constantly attracted the
attention of the Society. As a mode of exerting a more direct
and special influence upon these children and their parents, it
was thought that the labors of an agent, who should devote a
large share of his time to a personal visitation of the pupils and
their parents, as well as to a canvassing of the city among those
who did not attend the schools, would be productive of good
results. The Executive Committee, therefore, made such an
appointment, and, on the 1st of February, 1827, SAMUEL "W".
SETON entered upon his duties in that capacity. In May, he
submitted a brief report, in which he stated that he had visited
1,700 families, numbering 3,700 scholars, of whom about 1,500
families sent their children to Sunday school.

The summer and autumn months of this year had been
employed in ascertaining fully the sentiment of the citizens in
regard to the Society, and the propositions embraced in the
address relative to the new tax, and the remodelling of the sys-
tem. The Inquiry proved that great unanimity existed among
the tax-payers in favor of the plans recommended, and the ap-
proach of a new session of the Legislature made the close of the
year a fitting season to prosecute their claims before the public,
and the authorities of the city and State. In December, the
draft of a memorial was prepared and printed, and the trustees
were districted into Ward Committees, to obtain signatures to
the applications to the Corporation and Legislature. On the
26th of the month, these committees reported that 3,200 names
of responsible citizens had been obtained, the number being sub-
sequently increased to 4,000. They were referred to the commit-
tee having the subject of the new law under their consideration.

The Society having found it necessary, on several occasions,
to raise money by loans secured by mortgage upon portions of
the property of the Society, and the contingency of sales. being

120 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOQIETY.

likely to become expedient, the question of its legal power to
make such transfers was fully discussed. To remove all doubt
in reference to such a procedure, and to obtain the authority of
the Legislature to act in the premises, application was made to
that body, and, in Januaiy, 1829, a bill was passed and became
a law, with the following features :

1. Whenever, by a resolution of a majority of the whole
number of trustees of the Society, at any regular meeting of the
trustees, duly convened, confirmed by a vote of any subsequent
regular meeting after the said resolution shall have been pub-
lished at least one month in one of the papers of the city, it shall
be declared necessary to dispose of or mortgage any property of
the Society, it shall be proper to grant, convey, or mortgage the
said property.

2. That no mortgage or conveyance hitherto made shall be
impeached or defeated by reason of any doubt as to the power
of the Society.

The bill did not fully meet the desires of the trustees, but as
it conferred the authority, the demand for which prompted the
application, the board immediately resolved to mortgage school-
houses !N"os. 3 and 4, in order to raise a loan of $25,000.

The committee having in their care the application to the
Legislature for an additional tax, discharged their duties with
great zeal and efficiency, and, before that body adjourned, a bill
was passed which receive'd the signature of the Governor, au-
thorizing the imposition of an additional tax equal to one eighti-
eth of one per cent, of the value of the real and personal prop-
erty in the city, for the purposes of common school education.
This much-needed revenue was at last assured to the Society,
and contributed to remove doubts and apprehensions in regard
to the future capability of the institution to meet the demands
upon its treasury.

The expenses of the system for the year ending May 1, 1829,
were $62,256.72, the average number of pupils being 7,031.

In connection with the labors of the year, with reference to
the action before the Common Council and the Legislature, an
important step was taken to establish a comparison between the
schools of the Society and the private schools of the city. The
annual report for that year gives the following summary of the
result :

EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS.

121

Whilst the proposition for a special school tax was before the Corpora-
tion, two of the trustees were employed by their committee to take a census
of the whole number of schools of every description in the city, their gen-
eral character, number of scholars, &c. Much valuable information was
thus collected, and a correct and very interesting view of the state of edu-
cation in New York was obtained, and embodied in their report. From this
document it appears that, about the 1st of February, the whole number of
schools, of every class and quality (other than Sabbath), from Columbia
College down to the most indifferent, was 463, under the charge of 484 prin-
cipals and 311 assistant teachers, and containing 24,952 pupils. Of which
numbers, our institution, in 11 buildings, counted 21 schools, with 21 prin-
cipals and 24 assistant teachers (or monitors), and 6,007 children. Of the
pupils in the private schools, about 11,000, or two thirds of their entire
number, " are of nearly an equal grade as to advancement with those in the
public schools. The cost of educating the children in our schools may be
estimated at $2.75 each per annum, exclusive of interest on the buildings ;
and including the latter, it does not exceed $4, or $1 per quarter, which is
less than is charged in the worst description of schools in the city, and is
only about one third or one quarter of the price paid in a great many oth-
ers, in which the course of instruction and branches taught are much the
same as in the public schools. The system adopted and pursued in the lat-
ter is excellently adapted to promote habits of order, and to advance the
children in their studies ; and the trustees have no hesitation in asserting
their belief that the pupils are better and more efficiently taught than in the
great majority of the minor schools, and even in very many which are con-
sidered of .a better class.

The annexed schedule presents the condition of the schools
of the citv in a condensed form :

AGES.

rf
1

SCHOOLS.

H
"5

t.f

o J

cr,

M^*

-S

O C3

430

Private

432

'.->!)

1,013

13,631

070

4,489

6,907

7,214

1,869

402

442

s:,(i

7.922

7,398

15.320

Incorporated

2.-!

1.008

168

220

841

270

"IS

111

633

448

1081

1'J

Charity

197

2,297

970

2,430

960

1,305

1,239

2,544

Public

6,007

3,808

6,007

475

3,112

2,895

6,007

46S

Total

4S}

:;ii

1,243

22,943

7(0

9,435

15,564

9,490

2,154

666

4I1

099

12.972

11.980

24,952

Notwithstanding the very considerable provision made by
the various establishments for the education of the youth of the
city, an incontrovertible fact still remained to embarrass the

122 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

friends of the system with the solution of the question of va-
grancy. The report thus alludes to the facts :

The committee of the Common Council, from the result of the census of
the schools and the estimated population of the city, draw the appalling
inference that there are 20,000 children between the ages of 5 and 15 who
attend no schools whatever ; and if one third be deducted from this num-
ber, as having probably left school previous to the age of 15, and 3,000
more for any possible error in the data on which the calculation is founded,
we have still the enormous number of 10,000 who are growing up in entire
ignorance.

The year 1829 passed without any marked event other than
the efforts made to develop the efficiency of the system of in-
struction, and the removal of all impediments to its greatest use-
fulness. The principal topics of inquiry were in relation to the
infant schools, the system of rewards for the pupils, the practical
results of the pay system of tuition, the manual for the schools,
and a thorough revision of the by-laws. These several topics
are treated under their appropriate sections, to which the reader
is referred.

In February, 1830, a communication was received by the
board from a committee appointed by a meeting of the residents
in the vicinity of Eighth avenue and Twenty-first street, asking
for the organization of a school in that part of the city. Hon.
Gideon Lee presided at that meeting, and he addressed a letter
to the Society, which accompanied the application, in which he
offered a donation of $500 toward the erection of the building
when contracted for. He also named a location near the Third
avenue and Twenty-eighth street, to which he would contribute
another sum of $500. The subject was referred to Messrs.
Charles Oakley, James N. Wells, Robert C. Cornell, and Samuel
F. Mott, as a committee to report upon the necessity for a school
in those locations.

The committee promptly reported in favor of a school in the
first-named vicinity, and another between No. 2 (in Henry
street) and No. 4 (in Rivington street). The first of these
schools was built as No. 12 and the second as No. 13, and loca-
ted in Madison street. Four lots were selected in Seventeenth
street, near the Eighth avenue, and the Property Committee
were directed to proceed with the erection of a building thereon.

INCREASED INCOME. 123

During the year, a neat building for No. 9, at Bloomingdale,
was also constructed, and the school opened in August.

The new building for School No. 12, in Seventeenth street,
was opened on the 17th of January, 1831, under very flattering
auspices ; but the expectations of the board, and of the citizens,
were very soon changed into feelings of regret and disappoint-
ment. The house had been occupied only five days, when, on
the 22d of the same month, it was destroyed by fire. The
report of the committee, which submitted the facts relative to
the building, the opening exercises, &c., also gave official infor-
mation of the loss. The building had been nearly covered by
insurance, so that a loss of only about $3,000 was borne by the
treasury. The Building Committee were directed to proceed
immediately to rebuild the house, which was completed and
opened on the 29th of August.

The necessity for an increase of funds for the use of the Soci-
ety was pressing with greater urgency than ever upon the board,
and measures were taken to call the attention of the Corporation
to the wants of the Society. The Executive Committee appoint-
ed a sub-committee to draft a memorial to the Corporation, and
that body approved the measure, but introduced a section into
the law lodging the control of the additional tax of three eighti-
eths of one per cent, exclusively in the hands of the Common
Council. To this objection was made, and the Society remon-
strated against the section, as being calculated to lead to per-
nicious results. The law was passed in accordance with their
views, and the Society thereby placed in possession of a material
increase to their resources.

The controversy respecting the distribution of 1 the school
fund was revived during this year (1831), by the applications
from the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum and the Methodist
Charity School, the discussion of which made a special event in
the labors of the year.

124: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTEK VI.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC ORPHAN ASYLUM AND METHODIST CHARITY

SCHOOL.

Application from the Asylum for a Portion of the School Moneys Memorial and
Remonltrance of the Society Proceedings of the Common Council Address
of the Trustees, and Reasons for their Remonstrance The Methodist Charity
Free School Report of the Law Committee A Proposition Report of the Com.
mittec on Arts and Sciences of the Board of Assistants, on the Application of the
Trustees of the Methodist School Memorial of the Public School Society
Report of the Committee on Arts, Sciences, and Schools, of the Board of Alder-
men Decision Thereon.

THE law of 1824: relative to the distribution of the school
fund, entrusted to the Common Council the duty of apportion-
ing and distributing the school moneys of the city. Ten years
had elapsed since the enactment of the law granting to the trus-
tees of the Bethel Church the special privileges which gave rise
to the spirited controversy which was terminated at the close of
the year 1824: by the passage of the law, at the extra session of
the Legislature, annulling these privileges, and restricting the
trustees of the Bethel schools to the use of the public fund for
the payment of teachers' salaries. The interval of seven years
had witnessed the extinction of these schools, and the harmoni-
ous development of the public school system on a broad basis of
liberality and union.

The directors and friends of the Roman Catholic Orphan
Asylum, in Prince street, feeling the want of means to meet the
large demands upon their resources by the increasing number of
their pupils, and the accommodations requisite for their comfort-
able residence and instruction, determined to make application
to the Common Council for a pro rata in the distribution of the
school moneys, in order to test the liberality of the public au-
thorities, as well as the sentiment of the community. Accord-
ingly, on the 7th of March, 1831, an application was submitted

KOMAN CATHOLIC ORPHAN ASYLUM. 125

to the Common Council, and referred to the Committee on Com-
mon Schools. The trustees of the Methodist Charity School,
under the conviction that they had at least an equal right to the
public fund, prepared and presented a petition, which was sub-
mitted to the Common Council on the 21st of the same month,
and referred to the same committee.

The report was submitted on May 2, with the memorial and
remonstrance of the Public School Society, which were laid on
the table and ordered to be printed. The Executive Committee
of the Society had taken the subject into consideration, and pre-
pared a remonstrance, which was adopted at a meeting held on
May 2, and ordered to be presented to the Common Co,uncil at
the meeting to be held the same evening. The committee of the
Society had already been heard in opposition to the proposed
apportionment before the committee of the Corporation, which
committee had concluded to report in favor of the Orphan Asy-
lum. Alderman Lee, chairman of the committee, strongly
urged that the trustees of the Society should withdraw their
opposition, as they had resolved to report adverse to the Metho-
dist, and all other church schools. The following is the memo-
rial :

To the Common Council of the City of New York :

The memorial and remonstrance of the Trustees of the Public School
Society of New York respectfully represents :

That the applications now before the Common Council from the Catholic
Orphan Asylum and the Methodist Charity School, for a portion of the com-
mon school fund, are opposed to what your memorialists understand and
believe to be a sound and well-settled principle in the distribution of this
fund, as well as of all other moneys raised by general tax for the exclusive
purpose of promoting literary education. That moneys so raised cannot
constitutionally, consistently with the spirit of our free institutions, nor in
accordance with good policy, be appropriated to the support of church
schools, has, after mature deliberation, been so fully acknowledged by our
city government, and the reverse now finds so few advocates in any quarter,
that your memorialists refrain from remarks on that subject ; and it is with
no little regret they find themselves called upon, by the relation in which
they stand to the deeply interesting subject of public education, to oppose
the application from the Catholic Asylum. To the merits of this institu-
tion your memorialists willingly award the praise due to its object and
mode of management ; but believing, as they confidently do, that said appli-
cation is liable to the objections heretofore successfully used against church
schools, they feel bound to call the attention of the Common Council to the
facts, that none but Catholics are permitted to participate in the manage-

126 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tnent of the Asylum ; that the children attached to the institution are edu-
cated in the most rigid manner of the Church whose name it bears, and
that any moneys devoted to its maintenance are and must be applied to the
support and extension of the doctrines of that particular Church. That
this is the case, will not be denied by those whose petition your memorial-
ists respectfully and earnestly remonstrate against* and these facts mark in
bold relief the strongly sectarian and exclusive character of this institution.

These objections are not Adeemed applicable to the Orphan Asylum at
Greenwich, which is not sectarian, inasmuch as any female, of whatever or
no religious name, may become a member of the Society by an annual sub-
scription of the small sum of one and a half dollars, and entitled to vote
for, and eligible to be elected, a member of its Board of Managers, and be-
cause this association, with its managers, has always and does now consist
of members of various religious denominations.

It cannot be supposed that the rejection of church schools in the distri-
bution of school moneys is owing to the single fact that they are connected
with religious congregations, but because one of the objects aimed at in all
such schools is to inculcate the peculiar doctrines and opinions of the sect
having the management of them. It appears indisputable to your memo-
rialists, that any institution having the same objects in view, and under the
same exclusive control, is thereby rendered liable to the same objection,
whether under the direct management of a religious society or not.

Your memorialists further contend, that, in asking to be taxed for the
support of common schools, their fellow-citizens fully believed that the
amount thereby raised would be devoted exclusively to the cause of literary
education, and that no part would be given to institutions of a sectarian
character.

Believing that the enlightened views of this community will be fully
with them on this occasion, the Trustees of the Public School Society ear-
nestly solicit that the applications from the Roman Catholic Benevolent
Society and the Methodist Free School may not be granted.

So deeply interested do your memorialists feel in this important subject,
and so intimately do they consider the result of these applications to involve
the interests of common school education in this city, that they deem it
their duty respectfully to request that a committee of their body may be
heard before your honorable board before a decision be had thereon.

Witness the seal of the Public School Society, this 2d day of May, 1831.

The Executive Committee exercised a vigilant watchfulness
in the case, and the consideration of the question before the
Common Council having been postponed until the following
Monday, they prepared an address to the public, giving their
reasons for dissent. Very great and powerful efforts were con-
stantly making to ensure the success of the joint application of
the Koman Catholic Asylum and the Methodist Free School,

ROMAN CATHOLIC ORPHAN ASYLUM. 127

and the Executive Committee^ therefore, at a meeting of the
trustees held on the 6th of May, submitted their address, which
was adopted and ordered to be printed, as follows :

REASONS

Of the Trustees of the Public School Society for their Remonstrance against the
Petition of the Roman Catholic Benevolent Society to ~be admitted to a Com-
mon Participation of the School Fund.

The " New York Roman Catholic Benevolent Society " having petitioned
the Common Council for a participation in the common school money, the
Trustees of the Public School Society have felt it to be their duty to pre-
sent to the Corporation their solemn remonstrance against the said petition ;
and they now feel bound, by the urgency and importance of the occasion, to
state more particularly the reasons on which their remonstrance is founded.

It appears that the committee of the Corporation, to whom this subject
has been referred, have reported in favor of the petition. The committee
have probably been in part led to this result by the great respectability of
the petitioners, and by the humane character and excellent order of their
institution. While this board acknowledges the weight of these recommen-
dations, they cannot but regard the decision of the committee as a virtual
abandonment of those " cardinal principles " which were established in
1825.

There are few, as we trust, who are willing to return to the dominion
which was then cast off ; but the first step in a retrograde course may ren-
der it impossible to stop short of the last. The petition of the Roman
Catholic Benevolent Society ought, in the opinion of this board, to be
rejected, because it is contrary to the fundamental principles of liberty and
equal rights, to the Constitution of the State, and to a recent act of the
Legislature.

It is not now to be denied in this country, that the power of taxing the
whole community is given solely for the benefit of the whole community,
and that, so far as it is practicable, the benefits procured at the expense of
all should be participated by all. It is plain that the Corporation has no
right to constitute a privileged class, however benevolent its character
may be.

In order to test the case now under consideration, it is only necessary to
ascertain whether the funds now proposed to be given to the Roman Catho-
lic Benevolent Society would be so bestowed or employed as that all persons
in the same circumstances would have an equal opportunity of enjoying
them. In prosecuting this inquiry, we must look to probable practical
results, and not to mere theoretical principles.

The Society in question is, to all intents, a close corporation. It may be
true that the object of the Society is declared, by its constitution, to be
" the support and education of destitute and unprotected orphans, without
distinction of sex, country, or religious creed ; " but it is proper to observe,
that the constitution of the Society, so called, is necessarily merged in its

128 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

charter, and that the objects of the Society, as there stated, are somewhat
narrower. That barely recites, that certain persons had formed a Society
for " the humane and benevolent purposes of assisting and relieving the
poor, and of protecting and educating orphan children."

But let us suppose that the words of the constitution are as controlling
as if in the charter ; who are to select the orphans to be admitted into this
asylum ? The charter answers this question : " The said corporation " that
is, the persons who petitioned to be incorporated " and their successors,
have power to make all by-laws for the election or admission of new mem-
bers," and these members choose the managers. All the managers of this
institution are understood to belong to the communion whose name the
Society bears ; and it is not to be denied that it must always continue under
the management of members of the Roman Catholic Church. The Society
have not room for all orphans. Those of another faith are not formally
excluded. But will it be pretended that the Roman Catholics, as a sect of
Christians, disregard the injunction, " to do good unto all, especially to
those who are of the household of faith " ? Can it be pretended, then, that
the benefits of the institution are equally open to all ?

But there is another, and, perhaps, more serious objection to an equal
enjoyment of these benefits by the whole community. It is believed that
the system of education at this institution is so combined with religious
instruction, that many persons having, as guardians or friends, an authority
or interest in the disposition of orphan children, would be deterred from
sending them there by preconceived opinions or conscientious scruples.
And yet such persons may be compelled to contribute the very moneys
which go to support 'this institution. But the objection to this principle
extends much further ; it embraces all, of every persuasion, who have con-
scientious scruples about paying their money for the support of any particu-
lar faith, or who, if they have not such scruples, derive no benefit from the
expenditure, and regard it as an abuse.

In this point of view, how can this taxation be regarded as any better
than the system of tithes ? It is the same thing compelling men to sup-
port an institution against their consciences, or of which they do not par-
ticipate the benefits.

Let us now inquire why, if the petition of the Catholics is admitted,
that of the Methodists, now before the Corporation, is to be rejected ? or
why any other church or any society within the fold of a church, may not
set up similar claims ?

Why were all the churches and religious societies deprived of a partici-
pation in the school fund in 1825 ?

There were many reasons why one harmonious system, under the inspec-
tion of the public and under the direction of one body of men, should be
preferred to incongruous and irresponsible institutions ; but it was none of
these which procured the victory, then thought to be final, cf liberal princi-
ples in education over sectarian views, and which brought about the revolu-
tion which then took place. That proceeded from the conviction that the
school fund ought not to be diverted, in whole or part, to the purposes of

ROMAN CATHOLIC ORPHAN ASYLUM. 129

sectarian instruction, but should be kept sacred to the great object, emphat-
ically called COMMON EDUCATION.

The Roman Catholic Benevolent Society was placed among those ex-
cluded in 1825, because they were considered as clearly embraced in the
same principle. The " Female Association " was excluded at the same time,
though it received all children from every persuasion, and inculcated no
particular tenets, because it was chiefly under the patronage of individuals
connected with the Society of Friends. It will not be pretended that the
orphanage of their pupils, however it may appeal to our hearts, can in this
case affect our judgments.

la an exception to be made in their favor, because they receive all of
every sect ? Was it ever charged against either of the church schools that
they refused to receive any children who came to them, whether heretics
themselves, or the children of heretic parents ?

The committee of the Corporation say that neither equity nor sound
policy can " warrant the continuance of the participation to the Greenwich
Asylum, and at the same time withhold it from the Prince Street Asylum."
The Greenwich Asylum was retained by the Corporation, in 1825, because it
was not considered sectarian, and the Prince Street Asylum was rejected
because it was sectarian. In other words, the schools of the. one institution
were regarded as, properly speaking, common schools, while those of the
other were rejected as not such.

The Greenwich Asylum is not a close' corporation. It is open to the
membership of every female who chooses to pay $1.50. This board is per-
fectly satisfied with the decision which the Corporation then made ; but if,
upon investigation, it shall be found that this institution does, in conse-
quence of its administration, come within the principle of exclusion, it is
infinitely better 'that it should be excluded, than that the principle upon
which all the honor and glory of the cause rests should itself be destroyed.

This board believes, with the committee above referred to, that the car-
dinal principle adopted by the Corporation in 1825 was so generally and
strongly approved of by the community, that no deviation from it can now
be advised. But this board cannot perceive that the principle was any
other than that above stated.

Let us now look to the language of our State Constitution. It is there-
by declared, " that the proceeds of certain public lands belonging to the
State, together with ' The Fund denominated the Common School Fund,'
shall be and remain a perpetual fund, the interest of which shall be inviola-
bly appropriated to the support of common schools throughout the State."

It is well known that our common schools are supported by the joint
funds derived from taxes and from the said school fund, so that no part of
the money distributed by the Corporation can be diverted from the support
of common schools without a violation of the Constitution.

What are common schools? This phrase cannot possibly mean any thing
else than those schools which are commonly known by that name, and have
been so called because they are common that is", open to all. Those can-
not be common schools which are the property of a particular corporation,
9

130 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

and from which all persons may be lawfully excluded who do not belong to
a particular sect.

It seems unnecessary to go beyond the Constitution, which is the para-
mount law ; but the act of the Legislature to which we have referred was
passed under circumstances which clothe it with a peculiar authority in this
discussion.

In the winter of 1828-'9, a petition to the Corporation was, at the in-
stance of the board, circulated through the community, and very extensively
subscribed, praying the Corporation to petition the Legislature for an
increase of our taxes for the support of common schools. The sole and
express objects of the petition were, that the means of "common educa-
tion " might be extended, and that a fund might be set apart and kept
sacred to that object. This board presented a memorial to the Corporation
at the same time for the same object, and couched in nearly the same lan-
guage.

The Corporation accordingly applied to the Legislature, and a law was
passed, by which they were authorized to raise a certain sum "to be applied
exclusively to the purposes of the common schools in the said city." See 2d
vol. Rev. L., 240.

Can it be believed that the individuals who petitioned for the privilege
of being taxed for common schools, or that the Legislature who granted
that privilege, intended that the moneys thus to be raised should be applied
to the support of any school not equally open to all ? If the Roman Catho-
lic Benevolent Society had asked that not they, but the city, should be
taxed for the support of their school, would it have been granted ?

The charity for which aid is now sought is of a most interesting charac-
ter, but it ought, in the opinion of this board, to be supported by voluntary
donations, and not by compulsory levies.

Whatever may be the result of our opposition to the present application,
we trust it will be seen that it proceeds from no jealousy or prejudice in
regard to the Catholic religion, but that, on the contrary, it has arisen from
principles which are truly catholic, in the largest sense of that word, and
upon the maintenance of which depend the vital interests of civil liberty.

ROBERT C. CORNELL, Vice-President.

LINDLEY MURRAY, Secretary.

NKW YORK, May 6, 1831.

At the special meeting held on May 12, after the organiza-
tion of the new Board of Aldermen, the petition and report of
May 2d, of the old committee, were referred to the Commit-
tee on Arts, Sciences, and Schools, consisting of Messrs. Dibblee,
Meigs, and Hall.

While the committee had the matter under consideration, the
Commissioners of. School Money sent a communication to the
Board of Assistants, presented July 11, stating that the time had
.arrived to designate the schools which should be entitled to par-

ROMAN CATHOLIC ORPHAN ASYLUM. 131

ticipate in the distribution of the school moneys for the coming
year. The communication was referred to the Committee on
Arts and Sciences.

At the next meeting of the Board of Assistants, held July
18, Mr. Brush offered the following for adoption as an ordinance
relative to common schools :

Be it ordained by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city of
New York, in common council convened, that a law regulating the distribu-
tion of the common school fund of the city of New York, passed July 14,
1828, and all other ordinances amendatory of the same, be, and the same
are hereby, revived.

The statute of 1828 specified that "the institutions which
shall be entitled to receive of the Commissioners of the School
Fund, payable to and raised in the said city, are hereby desig-
nated to be the Public School Society of New York, the Me-
chanics' Society, the Orphan Asylum Society, and the Trustees
of the African Free School in the city of New York."

The ordinance was sent to the Board of Aldermen for con-
currence at its meeting on the 25th of the same month, on the
reading of which Alderman Dibblee moved an amendment, to
add to the societies or schools named in said law " The New
York Catholic Benevolent Society."

A motion was made to lay the same on the table, which was
lost. Considerable discussion followed, when it was moved to
reconsider the vote last taken. The question being taken there-
on, and a tie vote being had, the President gave his vote in the
affirmative. The question being then reconsidered, it was moved
that the matter be laid on the table, which was agreed to. On
motion of Alderman Dibblee, it was made the special order at
the next meeting.

The preliminary business of the meeting having been dis-
posed of, at the session of the board held on August 3, Alder-
man Strong called up the special order of the day, and the ordi-
nance was then read, as follows :

Be it ordained by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city of
New York, in common council convened :

That " A Law regulating the Distribution of the Common School Fund
of the City of New York," passed July 14, 1828, and all other ordinances
amendatory to the same, be, and the same are hereby, revived and reenacted.

132 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The amendment proposed by Alderman Dibblee when the
subject was previously under consideration, was also read, as
follows :

To add to the number of societies or schools named in said law, the
New York Catholic Benevolent Society ; which additional Society shall be
entitled to a portion of the common school money for such orphan children
as are, or shall be, taught in the school and maintained in the Orphan Asy-
lum House in Prince street, at the expense of said Society ; and the said
school be subject, moreover, to all the provisions, limitations, and restric-
tions recited and prescribed in and by said ordinance.

The ordinance and amendment occasioned as they could not
fail to do a protracted discussion, in which many of the mem-
bers took part. The question being at length called for, and a
vote on Alderman Dibblee's amendment being had, it resulted
as follows :

Affirmative Aldermen Strong, Scott, Meigs, Dibblee, Hall,
Woodruff 6.

Negative Aldermen Sharpe, Yan Wagenen, Lamb, Tucker,
Jeremiah, Palmer 6.

The vote being thus equally divided, the President of the
board, Alderman Cebra, gave his vote in the affirmative, and the
amendment was adopted. The question being taken on the ordi-
nance as amended, it was carried in the affirmative, and directed
to be sent to the Board of Assistants for concurrence.

A special meeting of the Board of Assistants was held on
the oth of the same month, at which time the law, as amended,
was submitted, and, on motion, was made the special order for
the first Monday in September. At the appointed time (Sep-
tember 5) the special order was called up, on motion of Dr.
Rhinelander, who moved a postponement for two weeks, in con-
sequence of the absence of several of the members of the board.
The motion was agreed to, but subsequently, on motion of Mr.
Murray, the whole question was referred to the Law Committee.

The following petition from the Methodist Society was pre-
sented in the Board of Assistants on September 5, and referred
to the School Commissioners :

To the Honorable the Board of Assistants :

The memorial of the Trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the
city of New York, RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH :

That your memorialists have supported for nearly forty years, in this

MEMORIAL OF TRUSTEES OF M. E. CHURCH. 133

city, a school for the gratuitous instruction of male and female orphans, and
the children of the poor and destitute. For a few years during this period,
your memorialists, in common with the managers of other charitable insti-
tutions for the instruction of youth, annually received a portion of the
school fund, which added to their ability in communicating instruction to
those under their care, and assisted in furnishing articles of clothing to those
orphan children who had no other dependence ; many of whom, having
received a suitable education, became useful and industrious citizens.

It is with deep regret your memorialists have to state that, in the year
1826, they were, by a decision of the Corporation, cut off entirely from
receiving any further benefit from the school fund, and thrown altogether
upon private charity for support, notwithstanding their school was in the
same need of help and assistance as heretofore. In consequence of this sud-
den diminution of the means of support, many of the children under the
care of your memorialists, and particularly the poor and destitute orphans,
were deprived of many of the advantages they before enjoyed. The ordi-
nary funds arising from the contributions of the benevolent being uncertain
and insufficient for providing them with clothing in the season of the great-
est need, whatever of clothing the orphan children have since received, has
been the spontaneous bestowment of a few individuals.

Your memorialists would respectfully represent, that, while they con-
tinue their school operations as formerly, and freely admit every one who
applies for admission whenever a vacancy Occurs, whatever may be the re-
ligious profession of their parents or guardians, or to whatever religious
community they belong, their resources, since the public school money has
been withheld from them, are by no means sufficient for the pressing wants
of the institution ; and apprehensions are entertained that they will be un-
able to meet the expenses of the present year.

Your memorialists would therefore most respectfully entreat that your
honorable board would take this their memorial into your most serious con-
sideration, and grant them such an equitable proportion of the school fund
as may enable them to provide, as formerly, for the comfort and instruction
of the destitute children and helpless orphans now under their care, of
which last-named there are mpre than fifty now in the school.

And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.

THE TRUSTEES OP THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
IN THE CITY OP NEW YORK.

By order of the board.

JOSEPH SMITH, President.

The report of the Law Committee * was submitted at the
meeting held on September 19, as follows :

The Committee on Laws and Applications to the Legislature, to whom
it was referred by a resolution of this board, to report on the constitution-

* Doc. No. XXI., Board of Assistants, September 19, 1831.

134 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ality of the ordinance passed by the Board of Aldermen, appropriating the
common school fund to the schools therein named, RESPECTFULLY REPORT :

That they entered upon the examination of the subject deeply impressed
with its importance, and fully determined to give it a careful and dispas-
sionate consideration.

The subject of education is at all times interesting, and particularly so
in a country like ours, where the Government, in theory and practice, H
purely one of public opinion the stability of which depends solely on the
virtue and intelligence of the people. The constituted authorities of this
State, impressed with its consequence, took early measures to establish our
primary seminaries of learning on a permanent basis, and munificently appro-
priated a large and liberal share of the public funds fur the establishment
and support of common schools, and for the diffusion of general informa-
tion. The Constitution of 1821 provides, that " the interest of this fund
shall be inviolably appropriated and applied to the support of common
schools throughout this State/'

Each county in the State is compelled to raise a sum equal in amount to
that which is apportioned to such county out of this fund.

The city of New York now receives about ten thousand dollars from the
State ; which places twenty thousand dollars at the disposal of the Commis-
sioners of the School Fund. The general act regulating school districts and
the election of trustees and school commissioners, clearly points out what
schools in the country are common schools ; but as it was inconvenient, if
not impracticable, to divide this city into school districts, the Legislature
itself designated what schools should receive a portion of this fund prior to
the year 1824.

This course frequently gave rise to difficulty and embarrassment, and
opened a door for imposition, which was practised to no inconsiderable
extent. By an act passed in that year, the Legislature imposed on the Com-
mon Council the duty of making such designation at least once in every
three years. That act has been incorporated into the revised statutes, and
this board is now called upon to exercise the discretionary power of dis-
tributing the interest of the school fund.

The first question which presents itself to the consideration of your com-
mittee is, What is meant by the term, Common Schools ?

It is urged by many intelligent gentlemen, whose opinions are entitled to
great respect, that every school and institution in which children are taught
gratuitously is a common school. If the term be so broad and comprehen-
sive, then every free school attached to the churches of the various religious
denominations throughout this State is a common school. Such, however,
could not have been the understanding of the early advocates of the estab-
lishment of a fund for the support of common schools, as no church schools
have ever participated in this fund except those in this city.

A school, to be common, ought to be open to all ; and those branches of
education, and those only, ought to be taught in it, which tend to prepare a
child for the ordinary business of life. If religion be taught in a school, it
strips it of one of the characteristics of a common school, as all religious

KEPORT OF THE LAW COMMITTEE. 135

and sectarian studies have a direct reference to a future state, and are not
necessary to prepare a child for the mechanical or any other business. No
school can be common unless parents of all religious sects, Mohammedans
and Jews as well as Christians, can send their children to it to receive the
benefits of an education, without doing violence to their religious belief.

Your committee cannot, therefore, find a more correct and accurate defi-
nition of the term " common school," than to call it a school in which noth-
ing but the rudiments of an English education are taught to all who are
admitted into it, which is open to every child that applies for admission,
and into which all can be admitted without doing violence to their religious
opinions, or those of their parents or guardians.

Such, in the opinion of your committee, were the schools which the
founders of our system of education intended to patronize and foster when
they created the school fund. Such were the schools which the members
of the Convention of 1821 had in view, when they adopted that article of
the Constitution, by which the fund thus set apart by the bounty and mu-
nificence of the representatives of an enlightened and liberal people, was
inviolably appropriated to the support of common schools.

The schools and institutions embraced in the ordinance referred to your
committee, are the Trustees of the Harlem School, the Trustees of the Man-
hattanville School, the Trustees of the Hamilton School, the Trustees of the
Yorkville School, the African Free School, the Public School Society of the
city of New York, the Mechanics' Society, and the Orphan Asylum Society ;
and it is proposed, by the ordinance now under consideration, to add to the
list the Eoman Catholic Benevolent Society. Your committee, anxious only
to arrive at a correct conclusion, feel constrained to examine particularly
into the character of these schools and institutions, and ascertain what title
they have to the appellation of common schools, as their claim to a portion
of this fund depends solely on the decision of this question. Acting in
their representative capacity, and discarding all private feeling and individ-
ual considerations, your committee will endeavor to test their claim to a
participation in this fund by that Constitution which they fyive sworn to
support.

The Harlem, Hamilton, Manhattanville, and Yorkville schools are incor-
porated institutions, located in the Twelfth Ward. They are free schools,
to which parents of any religious denomination may send their children,
and in which the ordinary branches of an English education are taught, dis-
connected with all sectarianism. If parents are desirous that their children
should study any catechism in the Hamilton School, they are gratified in
that respect ; but it is not obligatory upon any one to study such catechism,
nor is it introduced as a part of the system of instruction adopted by the
trustees of the institution.

The African free schools were established for the special purpose of
opening the avenues to a gratuitous education to the descendants of an
injured race, who have a strong claim on the humanity and justice of our
State.

It may be objected, that these schools are not open for the education and

136 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

instruction of any except colored children. This, however, is not an insur-
mountable objection. The blacks are, by common consent, and by the Con-
stitution of the United States, regarded as a distinct race, and the " parti-
tion wall " between them and us cannot be broken down, without doing
violence to those feelings and prejudices which have become a part of our
nature. These children must, then, be entirely shut out from all the means
of obtaining an education necessary to make them good members of society,
unless schools are established into which they can be admitted. Such insti-
tutions we find in the African free schools ; and it is due to the trustees of
those schools to remark, that they have been eminently useful, and that they
are prepared for the instruction of more scholars than now attend them.

Your committee are fully convinced that these five schools come within
the meaning of the term " common schools."

The only remaining institution which, in their opinion, is entitled to a
portion of this fund, is the Public School Society. This institution has
been the most useful of all, as its operation is annually felt by more than six
thousand of the rising generation, on whom will devolve the sacred duty
of preserving and perpetuating our republican institutions.

This Society was incorporated in 1805, by the name of " The Society for
Establishing a Free School in the City of New York, for the education of
such poor children as do not belong to, or are not provided for by, any
religious society."

In 1808, the power of the Society was extended to any children who are
proper objects of gratuitous education, and its name changed to that of
" The Free School Society of New York ; " and, in 1826, the name of this
Society was changed to that by which it is now known, and its powers fur-
ther extended so as to embrace children of all descriptions, whether the
objects of gratuitous education or not, and without regard to the religious
sect to which such children or their parents may belong. The public
schools are open to all, the poor as well as the rich, and no particular re-
ligious creed is taught to the children who attend them. But a portion of
the Scriptures is read in the morning by the teachers, without comment, in
these as well as some of the other schools above named. The schools under
the direction of the Trustees of the Public School Society may be emphatic-
ally called common schools, and have a just and legal claim to a portion of
the school fund.

The original charter of the Mechanics' Society did not authorize the
appropriation of any of their funds to the support of a school ; but, by an
act passed January 26, 1821, the Legislature " empowered the Society to
appropriate such part of their funds as may by them be deemed expedient,
to the establishment and maintenance of a school for the education of the
children of indigent or deceased members of said Society."

The Society, in conformity with the power vested in them, established a
school ; and, by one of the school regulations, it is provided that " the
legitimate subjects of it shall be children of the members cf the Mechanics'
Society, or the orphans of deceased members, and the children of respecta-
ble mechanics pursuing some trade or branch of mechanics in this city.

REPORT OF THE LAW COMMITTEE. 137

The children of other respectable citizens may be admitted by a special resc-
Imtion of the School Committee." It was stated to your committee, by one
of the trustees of said Society, that none except the children of members,
or deceased members of the Society, were gratuitously educated in this
school.

If your committee have been correct in the view which they have already
taken as to the requisites of a common school, the Mechanics' School cannot
receive a portion of the common school fund. It is exclusive in its charac-
ter, and is calculated to divide society into classes and grades, contrary to
the spirit of our Constitution and Government.

It has ever been a favorite maxim with American legislators, that " all
mankind are born free and equal ; " and so closely is this principle connect-
ed with our political institutions, that, to make any discrimination between
the different occupations of individuals, it would be considered as a de-
parture from first principles, and a virtual violation of the Constitution.
The division of society into grades, even for the purpose of education, would
be productive of the most fatal consequences. An odious distinction will
be early instilled into the minds of children, and the division lines of classes
of society will be more strongly drawn than they ever have been under the
most despotic governments of Europe. Children will then regard them-
selves as belonging to a particular rank in life, which will give rise to jeal-
ousies calculated to disturb the harmony and present arrangement of soci-
ety. It was to obviate these difficulties that our system of common school
education was adopted. The early associations of children make a deep
and lasting impression ; and the intimacies formed between the children of
the rich and poor at school will ripen into indissoluble friendship in maturer
years.

It has been urged upon your committee, that, by the act of 1821, in rela-
tion to this Society, they have a perpetual vested right to a portion of the
school fund. The second section of that act directs that the Commissioners
of the School Money for the city of New York shall pay to the Mechanics'
Society, in pursuance to the fourth section of the act entitled " An Act for
the Establishment of Common Schools," passed March 12, 1813, a portion
of the school money. The fourth section referred to merely designated what
schools in the city of New York should receive a portion of the school fund.
As the Mechanics' Society was,- subsequently to the passage of that act,
authorized to establish a school, in order to entitle them to receive a portion
of the school fund, it was necessary that the Legislature should authorize
the Commissioner of the School Fund to pay a portion of the money to said
Society. It was for this purpose the second section above referred to was
incorporated into the act of January 26, 1821. That section did not confer
on the Mechanic's Society any other or greater right to the school fund than
the fourth section of the act of 1813 did on all the other schools in the city
of New York. The Legislature had the same power to repeal the one as the
other, which power was exercised in 1824. Your committee, therefore, can-
not avoid coming to the conclusion that tffe Mechanics' School is not enti-
tled to a portion of the school fund.

138 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The Orphan Asylum Society heretofore has received a portion of this
fund, but it ought, in the opinion of your committee, to be placed on the
same footing with the Roman Catholic Benevolent Society.

Your committee, however, individually take a deep interest in the wel-
fare of these institutions, and are extremely solicitous for their continued
prosperity and success in the work of benevolence. Although they have
contributed in an eminent degree to alleviate the wants and miseries of a
helpless class of individuals, who are thrown upon the world destitute and
unprotected, and physically disqualified from procuring the means of assist-
ance, yet they are very limited in their operations, and the schools attached
to them are solely for the education of orphans who are supported by the
bounty of these institutions.

The trustees of these institutions have assumed the station and responsi-
bility of the natural guardians of the orphans received into them, and are
bound to provide for their support and education. If the funds of these
societies are insufficient to pay for the education of tbe children, they can
be sent to the public schools, where they would be cheerfully received, and
their education strictly and justly attended to.

As asylums, these institutions appeal to the sympathies of our nature
and the best feelings of the human heart ; and although they rank among
the most laudable of the institutions which have sprung up in this age of
benevolence, they want the most important characteristic of common schools,
and are placed beyond the reach of legislative aid, so far as relates to this
fund, which has been inviolably appropriated to a specific object.

It has been repeatedly charged that those institutions are sectarian. The
information before your committee on this point is full and satisfactory.
Any respectable female may become a member of the Orphan Asylum Soci-
ety by paying a specific sum, and the door is open to all who wish to be-
come members of the institution, without distinction of religion or country ;
but the recipients of their bounty are instructed in the Catechism of the
Dutch Reformed Church, and are compelled to attend religious worship at a
church of that denomination. This renders the Greenwich Asylum secta-
rian in its character.

The Roman Catholic Benevolent Society also has strong marks of secta-
rianism about it. None except Catholics can become regular members of
the Society, although any person whose piety, dignity, and morality will
reflect honor on the Society, may become honorary members. This feature
in the organization of that institution will forever keep its government ex-
clusively under the direction of that religious sect. And although it 18
open for the reception, support, and education of destitute and unprotected
orphans, without distinction of sex, country, or religion, yet all who partici-
pate in its bounty are exclusively instructed in the doctrines of the Roman
Catholic religion.

Here another objection presents itself, in which is involved a grave and
serious constitutional question, a correct decision of which will save us from
most of those religious struggles which have disturbed the peace and repose
of Europe, and which have caused so much bloodshed throughout the world.

EEPOKT OF THE LAW COMMITTEE. 139

The question is this : Can we, without violating the Constitution, appro-
priate any of the public funds to the support of those schools or institu-
tions in which children are taught the doctrines and tenets of religious sec-
tarianism ? The Constitution of this State declares that the free exercise
and enjoyment of religious professions and worship, without discrimination
or preference, shall forever be allowed in this State to all mankind. This
article of the Constitution recognizes not only religious toleration, but per-
fect religious freedom, so long as tha.t freedom is exercised in a manner not
inconsistent with the peace and safety of the State. Each individual, in
religious matters, is left to pursue the bent of his own inclination, and to
follow the dictates of his own conscience.

If an effort should be made to raise a fund by taxation, for the support
of a particular sect, or every sect of Christians, it would unhesitatingly be
declared an infringement of the Constitution, and a violation of our char-
tered rights. Tour committee cannot, however, perceive any marked differ-
ence in principle, whether a fund be raised for the support of a particular
church, or whether it be raised for the support of a school in which the
doctrines of that church are taught as a part of the system of education.

In the one case, an ordained and regularly constituted ministry are paid
for delivering their lessons from the pulpit ; and, in the other, a more hum-
ble, though not less useful class of teachers are paid for giving the same
instructions in a different manner. Both tend to the same end, and both
designedly promote the growth and extension of sectarianism. The one act
will be as great a violation of the constitutional rights and conscientious
scruples of the people as the other. Jews, Christians of every denomination,
deists, and unbelievers of every description, contribute their due portion to
the school fund, and it ought to be so distributed and disposed of that all
may participate in the benefits flowing from it, without doing violence to
their consciences. It would be but a poor consolation to an individual to
know that he may entertain whatever religious opinions he pleases, and
attend any church he may select, and at the time be legally compelled to
contribute a portion of his property to the support of a school in which
religious doctrines diametrically opposed to those he entertains are taught.
Any legislation sanctioning such a principle would meet with the decided
disapprobation of this community.

So thoroughly were the founders of our State convinced that religion in
every shape should be untouched by legislative acts, that they urged and
procured the adoption of an article of the Constitution disqualifying minis-
ters of the gospel, and priests of every denomination, from holding any
civil or military office or place within this State.

The duties of a spiritual guide and religious instructor were considered
as incompatible/with those of a civil or military station. It would be a vir-
tual violation of this article of the Constitution to appropriate a fund, purely
civil in its character and object, to the support of religious schools, and
would not be sanctioned by a people ardently and devotedly attached to the
maintenance of civil and religious liberty.

Your committee are of the opinion that, if the two asylums are admit-

140 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ted to accept a portion of the school fund, it will open the door for the
admission of every schooler institution in which children arc taught gra-
tuitously % notwithstanding it may be sectarian to the fullest extent.

Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, and every other sectarian school, must
come in for a share of this fund. And the Common Council cannot stop
here. If charity schools are founded in which the doctrines of an Owen
and a Wright are taught, or in which the " Age of Reason " or the Khoran
is adopted as a standard work, they will stand on the same footing as other
religious schools. Should such a course be pursued, it will be a violation
of the liberal principle established by the Common Council in 1825, of deny-
ing admission to all schools and institutions which were considered as secta-
rian. A departure from this salutary precedent will be productive of incal-
culable mischief. If all sectarian schools be admitted to the receipt of a
portion of a fund sacredly appropriated to the support of common schools,
it will give rise to a religious and anti-religious party, which will call into
active exercise the passions and prejudices of men. A fierce and uncompro-
mising hostility will ensue, which will pave the way for the predominance
of religion in political contests. The unnatural union of Church and State
will then be easily accomplished a union destructive of human happiness
and subversive of civil liberty.

It should ever be borne in mind, that ecclesiastical despotism is the
worst and most oppressive species of tyranny ; it is unnecessary to inquire
why it is so. The fact is well attested by the history of every people who
have lived under the government of monarchs and priests. Many of the
miseries now endured by the laboring class in England are attributable to
the accumulation of the immense revenues of the bishops and clergy, and
to the odious and oppressive system of exacting tithes for the support of an
established church. It would be an incipient step toward engrafting in our
institutions a system not less odious and oppressive, not less fatal in its con-
sequences to the liberties and happiness of our country, to place the interest
of the school fund at the disposal of sectarians. It is to tax the people for
the support of religion, contrary to the Constitution, and in violation of
their conscientious scruples.

Your committee are of opinion that the ordinance referred to them is
unconstitutional, so far as relates to the Mechanics' Society, the Orphan Asy-
lum Society, and the Roman Catholic Benevolent Society, and therefore
recommend that the same be amended so as to exclude those institutions
from any participation in the school fund.

WILLIAM VAN WYCK, -\

ERASTUS BARNES, > Law Committee.

NEHEMIAH BRUSH, /

The report was read, and laid on the table.

At the meeting of the board on the 24th of October, Dr.
Rhinelander moved that the school question be made the order
for the day at the next meeting, which was agreed to. At the

METHODIST FKEE SCHOOL. 141

time designated, the board went into Committee of the Whole,
Mr. Labagh in the chair. After considerable discussion the
committee rose, reported, and asked leave to sit again, which
was granted.

The Trustees of the Methodist Free School, while the mat-
ter was thus pending, sent a proposition to the Public School
Society, which was laid before the Board of Trustees at their
meeting on November 4th, in the following form :

NEW YORK, 4//i November, 1831.

The subscribers, representing the Trustees of the Methodist Charity Free
School in this city, respectfully offer to the New York Public School Soci-
ety their school-house iii Forsyth street, and 212 scholars attached thereto.

The premises are two lots of ground, under lease for twenty-four years
unexpired, at the yearly rent of $100. The building thereon is a two-story
frame building, 30 feet front by 85 feet deep. The whole upper part is
occupied for the school-room, the lower part by the teacher, and for society
meetings. The lower part is wished to be retained by the Trustees of the
Methodist Episcopal Church until August next, and the school-rooms can be
had immediately, upon an arrangement being made with the teachers, who
are employed until May next.

GILBERT COUTANT,
Chairman of the Committee appointed by the Board of Trustees.

This proposition was referred to a committee, consisting of
Najah Taylor, George T. Trimble, and Robert C. Cornell, who
were appointed to confer with the committee of the Trustees of
the Free School, and report their action thereon. The price
demanded by the latter for their real estate $3,500 was
deemed to be too high, and at a meeting of the Trustees of the
Public School Society, held on the 3d of February, 1832, the
proposition was declined, and the committee authorized to con-
tinue the negotiation. No arrangement, however, was made
between the parties.

The matter remained in this position until December 19,
when Mr. Smith introduced the following resolution :

Resolved, That the .Committee on Arts and Sciences, to -whom was re-
ferred the. petition of the Trustees of the Methodist Society, for a participa-
tion of the school money, be requested to report without delay.

The resolution accordingly went to the committee, who, how-
ever, did not report until May 7th of the following year only

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

one day previous to the expiration of its term of office, at which
time the following report was made :

The Committee on Arts, Sciences, and Schools, to whom was referred the
annexed memorial from the Trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
praying to be admitted to participate in the benefits of the common school

fund, RESPECTFULLY REPORT :

That they have had the same under consideration, and have come to the
following conclusion, viz. : That, inasmuch as the memorialists have stated
in their petition which your committee have every reason to believe to be
true that they at all times have admitted children of every denomination
into their schools, and have, at the present time, about fifty orphans who
are educated upon general principles, without reference to sectarianism, your
committee are of opinion that they are of right and ought to be admitted
to a participation of the fund, and would therefore beg leave to offer the
following resolution, viz. :

Resolved^ That the ordinance defining what societies shall be admitted to
a participation of the common school fund be so amended as to embrace
" The Trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the City of New
York."

Respectfully submitted by the committee,

NEHEMIAH BRUSH,
WILLIAM MANDEVILLE.

The order of time is anticipated by the insertion of the above
report in this place ; but as it gives the decision of the commit-
tee of the Board of Assistants, and permits a return to the pro-
ceedings in the Board of Aldermen, it is deemed proper to pre-
sent it in this connection. No action was taken on the report.

The Trustees of the Methodist Free School had thus pressed
their application upon the Common Council ; but the con-
flicting opinions and interests which were brought to bear upon
the members of both boards occasioned a protracted delay.

At the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Public School
Society, held on March 30th, the committee of the board sub-
mitted a memorial, which they stated had been referred to a
committee, and had been printed, and made the special order for
the day on the first Monday in April following.

To the Honorable the Corporation of the City of New YorTt :

The memorial of the Trustees of the Public School Society HUMBLY

SHEWETH :

That they have seen, with deep concern, that the application of the

Methodist Episcopal Church for a participation in the fund raised for the

METHODIST CHURCH SCHOOL. 143

support of common schools, has met with a favorable report by a committee
appointed by the Board of Aldermen, and they feel constrained to present
their respectful but plain and solemn remonstrance against the measure pro-
posed. Your honorable bodies are not ignorant that the distribution of the
school fund among the church schools of the city, prior to 1825, gave rise
to multiplied abuses, which were arrested, and, it was hoped, terminated, by
an ordinance of the Common Council, which was received with almost uni-
versal public approbation.

The reform which was thus established was followed immediately by an
increased public interest in the schools ; subsequently, by an accession to
their funds ; and recently, by a liberal and ample provision for that object.

Your memorialists, believing that the circumstances in which the in-
crease of the school fund originated are worthy of great consideration, in
reference to the measure- now before the Board of Aldermen, beg leave to
recall them to the memory of your honorable bodies.

In the year 1828, your memorialists made an earnest appeal to their fel-
low-citizens " upon the importance of enlarging the means of common edu-
cation." Your memorialists soon after were instrumental in procuring the
circulation, among the citizens generally, of a petition addressed to the
Common Council in behalf of this great object. That petition was sub-
scribed by several thousands of respectable individuals, and embraced a
large proportion of our most wealthy citizens.

The object embraced in that petition is very plainly pointed out. The
petitioners say they are desirous that the common schools of the city should
be multiplied and improved, and, if possible, that others should be estab-
lished for the introduction of certain of the higher grades of instruction.
They propose an annual tax of not less than half a mill on the dollar upon
the amount of assessed property in the city, " for the purpose of free and
common education ; the fund thus to be raised to be kept separate from all
others, and sacred to the purposes for which it is designed." And they
pray the aid of the Corporation for the obtaining such a law as might be
necessary for the purposes aforesaid.

If any further evidence be wanted as to the design of the petitioners
above mentioned, your memorialists beg leave to state, from the best means
of information, that great numbers of persons refused their signatures until
they were assured that the funds to be raised were to be entirely protected
from sectarian employment or control.

The petition above referred to was presented, together with a special me-
morial from your present memorialists, to the Common Council, early in 1829 ;
and they were referred to a committee, who reported favorably thereto.

Application was accordingly made to the Legislature, substantially con-
forming in tenor, and exactly in spirit, with the petition and memorial
aforesaid. The Legislature promptly passed a law, viz., on the 25th of
April, 1829, by which the Corporation was authorized to collect, by tax, a
sum of money equal to one eightieth of one per cent, upon the assessed
property of the city, " to be applied exclusively to the purposes of common
schools in the said city."

144: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

On the 13th of April, 1831, the Legislature passed a law increasing the
amount to be raised to four eightieths of one per cent, for precisely the same
objects.

Your memorialists cannot entertain a doubt that not a single cent of the
fund thus raised by taxation ought to be under sectarian control, or applied
to the exclusive benefit of any particular class of individuals.

Your memorialists presume that the present application has been encour-
aged by the success of that recently made by the Catholic Orphan Asylum.

Your memorialists feel bound to protest in this instance, as they did in
that, on the ground that the admission of this school would be a violation
of the Constitution and of the laws, and of good faith toward the public.
They deem it also irreconcilable with the spirit of our republican institu-
tions, inasmuch as it involves a compulsory support of religious instruction,
without the ability to participate its benefits.

Your memorialists are compelled to differ with the respectable commit-
tee of the Board of Aldermen. The fact that " the school fund is raised
equally," in their judgments, leads to the conclusion that it ought to be dis-
tributed equally.

In regard to the Methodist school (which alone is now under considera-
tion), it appears that a preference as to admission is given to the children
of parents of the same persuasion, provided they are sufficient to fill the
school.

If, in such cases, no express preference or prohibition is given or enacted,
the same result indirectly obtains from the sectarian character of the instruc-
tion or government of the schools.

A perfect equality in the distribution of school moneys characterizes
every provision of the Legislature on this subject. It is alleged that they
have not " shut out any school on account of its religious connections." If
the omission of any prohibitory enactment furnishes an argument in favor
of the present application, almost any claim that can be imagined may be
established. But your memorialists, without further comment upon the
great principles involved in the proposed measure, beg leave to state that
the general principle of excluding the church schools, adopted in 1825, was
not, as they have understood, intended to be given up or impaired by the
admission of the Catholic Asylum School, but, on the contrary, this princi-
ple was expressly sanctioned and approved by the Common Council.

Your memorialists, in support of this assertion, refer to the report of the
committee on the Catholic application, and which was signed by the chair-
man of the committee, who have now reported in favor of the Methodist
school.

Your memorialists quote the language of that report : -

It is known to the Common Council that few questions of public policy
have caused so much excitement, as well in the government of the State as
in the council of the city, as that of the distribution of school money.
During several years prior to 1825, the agitation pervaded all classes of peo-
ple, as well as most of our public institutions. The adjustment of the ques-
tion, in the spring of 1825, was hailed with joy. The facts, arguments, and
principles which guided the government and dictated the laws of distribu-

METHODIST CHURCH SCHOOL. 145

tion at that period, are too well understood by this Common Council to
require to be recited in this report. The cardinal principles then adopted,
the classes of societies and schools then admitted to a participation, and the
classes of societies and schools then excluded, were so generally and strong-
ly approved by the community, that no deviation from those principles can
now be advised.

(Signed by) G. LEE,

JOHN ROGERS,
DAVID BRYSOX,
HENRY' ARCULARIUS,
TYLER DIBBLEE.

The Methodist Church Charity School the applicants now before you
was of the class and one of the number then excluded from participation in
the school fund.

Your memorialists suppose that your honorable bodies considered the
Catholic school as not coming within the rule applicable to sectarian
schools, but, on the contrary, as entitled to a portion of the school fund,
because the children of the Asylum would otherwise be deprived of the
power of participating in it.

It is not difficult to perceive that, if the Methodist school is admitted,
another, and the only remaining barrier to the admission of all the church
schools, will be broken down. The children of the Catholic Asylum are all
orphans. The Methodist school embraces " destitute children " also. If
destitute children are to be admitted under the patronage of one persuasion,
what fair and equitable distinction will your honorable bodies be able to
fix, which will exclude any other persuasion ? It is well known that the
children of all the church schools were fairly embraced in the description
of destitute children. The circumstance that the children in question re-
ceive other aid than that of instruction, creates, instead of removing, an
objection, in the opinion of your memorialists. This distinction between
the Methodist and other churches, if it now exists, will be shortly removed
by sectarian zeal, and the schools of the Society represented by your memo-
rialists will, of course, be subjected to a competition in which it is to be
feared that their superior advantages will be outweighed by inducements of
more than doubtful expediency. The bare suggestion of the subject in this
view involves considerations on which your memorialists had supposed the
public mind was made up.

If any thing more than what has been stated be necessary to show hovr
the principle of " equal rights " would be affected by the measure now con-
sidered, let it be remembered that the moneys given to church schools are
taken away from the public schools, and that there is a large portion of our
fellow-citizens who belong to no religious society, and a great many who
would refuse any instruction if encumbered with any ecclesiastical connec-
tion.

Tour memorialists beg leave to add, that they feel confident that a return
to the sectarian system will not ultimately be tolerated by public opinion.
The public will not and ought not to consent to be taxed for sectarian edu-
cation.

14:6 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Tour memorialists are therefore apprehensive, that, while the hopes held
out to the churches by the success of the present application must prove
ultimately fallacious ; that the sources of the present revenues of the public
schools would in that event be greatly diminished, and, in so far as the same
depend on the aforesaid acts of the Legislature, would be withdrawn.

If the public confidence in the equal distribution of the school fund is
ever lost, it is possible, not to say probable, that it will never be regained.

All which is respectfully submitted.

(Signed) PETEB AUGUSTUS JAY, President.

LINDLEY MURRAY, Secretary.

Dated this 24th day of March, 1932.

A long and earnest discussion took place upon the memorial,
and it was deemed important that the members of the Board of
Aldermen should be seen personally by committees on behalf of
the Society, and they were accordingly appointed, as follows :

Alderman Cebra, to be seen by Messrs. J. I. Roosevelt, Jr.,

and James Heard.
" Stevens, " Hiram Ketchum, Clark, and

Richards.
" Van Wagenen, " J. I. Roosevelt, Jr., and James

Heard.
Lamb, " Ketchum, Clark, and Depey-

ster.

" Tucker, Oakley and Wells. .

" Meigs, " Mott and Peters.

" Jeremiah, " Leveridge and Brinsmade.

Hall, " Swan and Depeyster.

" Palmer, " Childs and Najah Taylor.

" Woodruff, " Delamater and Wells.

The petition from the Methodist Society was presented in the
Board of Aldermen on the same evening (September 5) on
which it was laid before the Assistants, and was referred to the
Committee on Arts, Sciences, and Schools. The report in favor
of the application for school money was submitted on March 12,
1832, and was laid on the table, to be printed.

The remonstrance of the Public School Society against grant-
ing the application was laid before the board at the meeting held
on March 26, and was referred to the Committee on Aits, Sci-
ences, and Schools, and, with the other papers relative to the

METHODIST CHURCH SCHOOL. 147

matter, was made the order of the day for the following meeting
of the board. The committee reported on the remonstrance at
the session held on April 2, in which the recommendations of the
first report were reaffirmed, and their adoption strongly urged.
The report was recommitted.

On May 2, the report, on motion of Alderman Palmer, was
made the special order for the next meeting of the board, which
was held on the Tth of the same month, when Mr. Palmer called
up the special order relative to the school question. The report
of the Committee on Arts and Sciences was then read, as fol-
lows :

The Committee on Public Schools, &c., to whom was referred the petition
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, praying that a portion of the common
school fund may be given to aid in the instruction of the destitute children
and helpless orphans who are taught and assisted with, clothing, &c., at the
Methodist free school, ask leave to report :

That said committee have had the subject under their deliberation^ and
submit the following facts and resolutions :

That, for nearly forty years, the Methodist Episcopal Church, have sup-
ported a school in this city for the gratuitous instruction of orphan children
and the children of poor and destitute parents.

That they have received for several years a share of the common school
fund, for all children taught in their school.

That, encouraged by this public munificence, and prompted by a laud-
able desire to render more extensive and desirable their free school institu-
tion, and during the time while they were admitted to participate in the
school fund, the trustees took a lease, for twenty-one years, of two lots of

ground in street, and the Society erected thereon a school-house

thirty by eighty feet, at the expense of about four thousand dollars.

That, in the year 1826, they were unexpectedly deprived of all participa-
tion in the common school fund, and they have since found great difficulty
in sustaining their school.

That they have usually about two hundred scholars who are instructed
at their school, among whom there are about fifty orphans, or children of
parents entirely destitute.

That for shoes, clothing, &c., their poor children are dependent on pri-
vate charity, the funds raised for the school being inadequate ; and the peti-
tioners therefore ask that the Corporation will grant to the said school an
equitable proportion of the school fund.

It further appeared before your committee, that the concerns of said
school were managed by fifteen trustees, chosen by the Methodist Episcopal
Church.

That the fund which supports the said school is raised by contributions,
and is kept distinct from the church fund.

148 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

That the teachers are of the Methodist religious denomination ; that the
children of parents of any other religious denomination are admitted into
the school when there are vacancies.

That the school-house is distant about fifty or sixty rods from Public
School No. 7, in Chrystie street ; that the trustees never encourage children
to leave the public schools, but, on the contrary, refuse to receive such chil-
dren.

After a full examination of facts, your committee have come to the unani-
mous conclusion that the prayer of the petitioners ought to be granted ;
that they believe such a conclusion to be consistent with equity and justice,
because the common school fund is raised equally. They believe it is con-
sistent with the intention of the enlightened Legislature of the great State
of New York, who, in their statutes which create and distribute their
bounty to common schools, did not think proper to shut out any school on
account of its religious connections.

Whether the Common Council would deem it expedient (should they
adopt this report) to admit said school wholly, or only in part, to partici-
pate in the school fund without a more general enactment, your committee
have no means of judging. They therefore submit the following resolution,
which applies only to the destitute children in said school :

Resolved, That, in addition to the institutions in this city entitled to
receive a portion of the common school fund, and the tax raised for the
benefit of the public schools within the said city, the school of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church shall be entitled to receive its proportion for all the
orphans and children of destitute parents who may be taught in said
school, and who shall be duly returned, agreeably to the provisions of the
revised statutes. TYLEB DIBBLEE,

CHABLES H. HALL,
HENRY MEIGS.

The memorial of the Trustees of the Methodist Society, and
the remonstrance of the Public School Society, were also read.
On motion, the board went into Committee of the Whole, Alder-
man Cebra in the chair. After some time spent in discussion,
the committee rose, and the chairman reported that the Commit-
tee of the Whole had disagreed with the report of the Commit-
tee on Arts and Sciences.

The President then put the question, Will the board agree to
the report of the Committee of the Whole ? and a decision being
called, the question was decided in the affirmative, as follows :

Ayes Aldermen Cebra, Van Wagenen, Sharpe, Lamb,
Tucker, Jeremiah, Palmer, Woodruff 8.

Nays Aldermen Meigs, Dibblee, and Hall 3.

The report of the Committee of the Whole being thus adopt-
ed, the agitation of the question ceased, and the Trustees of the
Methodist Society abandoned their claim.

PEIMAEY SCHOOLS. 149

CIIAPTEK VII.

HISTORY FROM 1831 TO 1834.

Infant Schools Primary Departments Harlem School Pay System Abolished Lot-
teries Deaf and Dumb Institution Transfer of Property to the Corporation
New Plans Delegation to Boston Primary Schools Female Teachers Em-
ployed Vagrancy and Truantslup Ordinance of the Common Council New
Public Schools, Nos. 13 and 14 The Asiatic Cholera Hospital School-Houses
Evening Schools African Free Schools Report on Reorganization Manhattan-
ville Free School Samuel F. Mott Public School No. 15 Opening of No. 14
Normal School Salaries of Teachers Evening Schools.

THE expansion of the school system, in order to enable it to
keep pace with the wants of the metropolis, continually made
new demands upon the labors of the Society. As the number
of the schools increased, and the population in their respective
districts became more dense, it was made apparent that a new
order of facilities was required, and that a better classification
of the scholars, as to age, proficiency, and qualification, would
increase the efficiency of the system. An experiment had been
made by an association of ladies for the establishment of infant
schools, and the basement of School No. 8, in Grand street, had
been granted for the purpose. A committee to examine this
school and report upon the question, recommended the adoption
of the plan which is fully detailed under its appropriate section,
and also that a committee be appointed to examine into the ex-
pediency of a revision of the system of instruction in use for the
" Junior Classes." This committee reported in July, 1830, and
submitted a resolution that the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th classes be
designated as the 3d or Junior Department, and that, where
practicable, female teachers be employed for the care of the
schools. The subject was subsequently referred to a new com-
mittee, who reported a manual and regulations for the Junior
departments, which were to be called " Primary Departments ; "
and it was directed that application be made to the Legislature

150 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

for authority to educate and draw money for children between
two and sixteen years of age.

Overtures were made at this time by the Trustees of the Har-
lem School for the transfer of that school to the Society ; but as
advantageous arrangements could not be made, and it appeared
that, at most, only two of the residents at that part of the island
could he induced to become members of the Society, and aid in
the supervision of the school, it was deemed inexpedient to en-
tertain the proposition.

Thus opened the year 1831.

An application having been made for a school at the Five
Points, a committee was entrusted with the duty of examining
the location, and reporting the facts in the case. Their recom-
mendations were in the affirmative ; but the party with whom
they supposed they had agreed relative to the terms of lease of
the premises, subsequently refused to fulfil the contract except
at a very considerable advance, and with restrictions which were
deemed to be inimical to the objects of the Society, and the
project was, for the time, abandoned.

The Society had now under its charge twenty-three schools
and 7,383 pupils.

The practical as well as the financial results of the " pay sys-
tem " were observed with much solicitude ; and when, at the
beginning of the year 1832, the amount of tuition fees had been
reduced to a comparatively trifling sum per quarter, the treas-
urer, Samuel F. Mott, in his quarterly report suggested that tho
charges for tuition be abandoned. Accordingly, on the 3d of
February, on a consideration of the quarterly report of the
treasurer, it was resolved, u THAT THE PAY SYSTEM BE ABOLISHED."

By the statute which had been in operation many years, and
in obedience to which the Society had received considerable
sums of money, the Society and the Institution for the Deaf and
Dumb had been made the recipients of the tax upon lottery
dealers. The directors of the latter institution informed the
board, in February, that they had decided to apply to the Legis-
lature for a grant of the whole amount so collected. The mat-
ter was referred to a committee, to consider and remonstrate ;
but, on a conference with the Finance Committee of the Institu-
tion for Deaf-Mutes, they reported that it would be advisable to
leave the disposition of the revenue to the Legislature, and a

TRANSFER OF REAL ESTATE. 151

resolution was adopted declaring it inexpedient to interfere with
the action of that body. This was substantially a surrender of
the . income, and was in harmony with the sentiments of the
trustees, who had long borne their testimony against the lottery
system, and felt unreconciled to receive the fruits of " that mode
of legalized gambling," even that they might be expended in
the cause of educating and reforming the children of those
classes who suffered most by that vicious and seductive scheme.

The transfer of the property held by the Society to the Cor-
poration of the city, which had been under consideration at vari-
ous times, was again agitated at the beginning of the year 1832.
The fact that the Society was in the annual receipt of a large
amount of money from the public funds, part of which was ex-
pended in the purchase of grounds and the erection of valuable
buildings, thus enabling the Society to become possessed of a
constantly accumulating mass of real estate, was urged on every
occasion by the advocates of opposing interests as a formidable
objection to the institution. The pretext that the Society was
" a close corporation," perpetuating itself by the choice of its
own members and officers, was not weakened by the plea of its
possession of so much real estate, which was obtained by the
means of taxes upon " the people ; " and the trustees, ever anx-
ious to promote the primary and noble object of the enterprise,
and having no personal interests to subserve, were as desirous
of lodging the title in the city, as any of their opponents. Their
desire was, however, just as strong that the property should not
be diverted to other purposes, and that they should not be de-
prived of the power of carrying out the scheme of popular in-
struction whenever the wants of the city called for the purchase
of additional locations and the erection of new buildings. At
the meeting held on the 14th of February, the following pream-
ble and resolutions were considered and laid on the table, and
subsequently discussed, and the matter referred to a committee :

Whereas, By an act of the Legislature passed January 8, 1826, the Public
School Society was authorized to convey their school edifices, and other
real estate, to the Corporation of the city of New York, upon such terms
and conditions, and in such form, as should be agreed upon between the
parties, taking back from the said Corporation a perpetual lease thereof,
upon condition that the same shall be exclusively and perpetually applied
to the purposes of education ; and, whereas, it is deemed expedient and

152 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

proper that the authority given by the act of the Legislature above recited,
except so far as relates to School No. 1, should now be exercised ; therefore,
Besohed, That a respectful communication be made to the honorable the
Common Council, of the readiness of this board to make such conveyance
to the city, and to accept from the city in return such lease as above men-
tioned, and that a committee of three trustees be appointed to arrange the
terms and conditions of the transfer, and the form in -which the same shall
be made.

The transfer contemplated was not carried into effect, and
the school property remained in the care of the Society until
transferred to the Board of Education, in 1853. The Corpora-
tion did not deem it advisable or necessary to remove the prop-
erty from the jurisdiction of the Society.

The State Superintendent had devoted a considerable portion
of his annual report to the Legislature to a review of the school
system of New York city, and had made important suggestions
relative to the improvement of the schools. At the meeting of
the board held on the 21st of the same month, the report was
submitted, and, on consultation, a committee wns appointed to
report such plans as might be deemed calculated to meet the
necessities of the schools. This committee was composed of
Samuel F. Mott, James I. Roosevelt, Jr., Hiram Ketchum, R.
Havens, J. B. Brinsmade, Lindley Murray, and R. Sedgwick.

The committee acted promptly upon the matters referred to
them, and appointed Mr. Sedgwick and Samuel W. Seton as a
sub-committee to visit Boston, for the purpose of inspecting the
school system of that city. The deputation were deeply im-
pressed with the flourishing state of the schools and the better-
developed system of instruction in use in that city, as well as the
more advantageous classification with regard to age and degree
of attainments of the pupils. The committee, deeming a very
material change of the whole system necessary, reported their
views in part on the 4th of May, confining their recommenda-
tions to the introduction of " PRIMARY SCHOOLS " for young chil-
dren who resided at too great distances from the schools already
established. The recommendations were to the effect that ten
primary schools be established, under the care of a " Committee
on Primary Schools ; " that female teachers be employed, at a
salary of $200 per annum, with an assistant, at a salary of $50
per annum ; that the ages be from four to ten years, and that,

VAGRANCY AND TKUANTSHIP. 153

when scholars should reach the age of seven years, they should
be transferred to the upper schools, if fitted to enter the sixth
class.

The resolutions were adopted, and Messrs. S. "W". Seton, G.
T. Trimble, J. B. Brinsmade, J. H. Taylor, Mahlon Day, Heman
Averill, and Samuel Demilt, were appointed as the Committee
on Primary Schools. For specific information, the reader is re-
ferred to the chapter devoted to this grade of the schools. The
growth of the city exhibited a corresponding increase in the
multitude of its vagrant and untrained youth. The original
object of the Society grew in importance with each year of its
existence, and the adoption of remedial measures pressed upon
the attention of the board with greater urgency than at any pre-
vious period.

The views entertained of this question may be inferred from
the following passage, contained in the twenty-seventh annual
report, adopted in the month of May :

The city of Boston, with a population more than two thirds less, ex-
pends annually nearly double the largest sum heretofore appropriated in a
year to the purposes of education in New York. Their system should, of
course, be much more complete and effectual than ours ; and although, in
some respects, it is so, yet it may be stated with confidence that the New
York schools compare favorably with those of the same grades in Boston.

Truantship in that city is deemed a criminal offence in children, and
those who cannot be reclaimed are taken from their parents, and placed in
an institution called the " School of Reformation," corresponding, in many
respects, with our House of Refuge, from which they are bound out by the
competent authority, without again returning to their parents. As a neces-
sary consequence, the percentage of absentees, or the difference between
the number of children on register and the actual attendance, is less in the
Boston public schools than those of New York. This subject has during
the past, as in former years, received the attention of the trustees, and will
probably be brought before the next board, in connection with the general
subject of non-attendance at any school, which* exists to such an alarming
extent in this city. Efforts have been made by the present board to obtain,
in some way, the active cooperation of the city government in applying a
remedy to this extensive evil. Every political compact supposes a surren-
der of some individual rights for the general good. In a Government like
ours, " founded on the principle that the only true sovereignty is the will of
the people," universal education is acknowleged by all to be not only of the
first importance, but necessary to the permanency of our free institutions.
If, then, persons are found so reckless of the best interests of their children,
and so indifferent to the public good, as to withhold from them that instruc-

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tion without which they cannot beneficially discharge those civil and politi-
cal duties which devolve on them in after life, it becomes a serious and
important question whether so much of the natural right of controlling
their children may not be alienated as is necessary to qualify them for use-
fulness, and render them safe and consistent members of the political body.
The expediency of such a measure would be confined pretty much per-
haps entirely to large seaport towns, and, in its practical operation, would
be found to affect but a few native citizens. The number of families arriv-
ing in this city almost daily from Europe is so great as to require some
measure of the kind ; for the means heretofore used to induce the attend-
ance of their children at the public schools have proved insufficient. The
objectionable mafiner in which these children are employed, on their arrival
here, needs no description ; it cannot have escaped the notice of any observ-
ing citizen.

The subject having been brought to the notice of the city
authorities, proceedings were had in the Common Council which
resulted in the adoption of the resolutions which follow :

Resolved, That the Trustees of the Public School Society, and the Com-
missioners of the Almshouse, be requested to make it known to parents, and
all persons, whether emigrants or otherwise, having children in charge
capable to receive instruction, and being between the ages of five and twelve
years, that, unless said parents and persons do or shall send such children to
some public or other daily school, for such time in each year as the Trustees
of the Public School Society may from time to time designate, that all such
persons must consider themselves without the pale of public charities, and
not entitled, in case of misfortune, to receive public favor.

Besohed, That the Trustees of the Public School Society, and the Com-
missioners of the Almshouse, are hereby authorized to take such steps as
they may deem expedient, from time to time, to give the necessary publicity
to the preceding resolution ; and the commissioners are hereby requested to
use such means as may be in their power and discretion to carry the same
into effect.

Adopted by the Board of Aldermen, April 23, 1832.

Adopted by the Board of Assistants, May 7, 1832.

Approved by the Mayor, -May 10, 1832.

Twenty thousand copies of these resolutions, in the form of
a circular, were directed to be printed and distributed by the
agent of the Society.

The Board of Trustees recommended Sunday-school teachers,
the officers and agents of charitable institutions, and others, to
urge constantly upon all their pupils or beneficiaries the impor-
tance of attending the public schools.

THE CHOLERA SEASON. 155

At the same meeting of the board, the Finance Committee
submitted a statement, showing that the treasurer would have
at his disposal, at the end of the fiscal year of the Society, a bal-
ance of about $37,000. This favorable state of the treasury led
the board to adopt a resolution directing the appropriation of
$10,000 toward the payment of the loan from the Savings Bank,
and also another resolution to locate a school in the Eleventh
Ward, and in the vicinity of Corlear's Hook. A Committee on
Locations was appointed, consisting of Messrs. J. Heard, Benja-
min L. Swan, Charles Oakley, Samuel F. Mott, William W.
Fox, and R. C. Cornell. In November, the committee reported
the purchase of four lots in Madison street, for No. 13, at a cost
of $8,000 ; and, in December, the further purchase of four lots
in Houston (then North) street, near Norfolk, for $6,000. The
Building Committee proceeded promptly with their duties in
reference to the erection of houses upon these locations.

The year 1832 is memorable in the sanitary history of the
city, as the period of the first visitation to the New World of
the Asiatic cholera. Its presence in the city, and its desolating
sweep, arrested business, and impelled tens of thousands to leave
their dwellings for a temporary residence in the country. Many
also removed from one section of the city to another. Some of
the school buildings were used as hospitals, and the schools gen-
erally were dismissed in advance of the usual season. The com-
mittee having the matter in charge made a report of the pro-
ceedings during the summer, from which the following facts are
gleaned :

On the 6th of July, the committee were informed that the
Board of Health intended to take possession of No. 4. They
waited on the Mayor and the Board of Health, and remon-
strated against using the school as a hospital, but to no purpose.
The school was dismissed, the desks and furniture were taken
out, and the building appropriated for the sick. On the 9th of
July, No. 1 was closed. On the 15th, the Board of Health
gave directions to close No. 2, in order that the building should
be occupied as a hospital. On the 17th, Nos. 8 and 10 were
closed ; on the 18th, No. -11 \vas also closed ; and on the 20th,
No. 5 was dismissed. A large number of children having been
sent to the " Sailors' Snug Harbor " from other portions of the
city, a temporary school was opened during the season at that

156 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

place, a building being granted for the purpose. The school'was
kept open from the 27th of July to the 31st of August, two ses-
sions daily, seven days in the week, making a term of seven
weeks of five days each, with an average of 104 pupils.

The epidemic passed away, and the schools resumed their
sessions in the fall, at such times as were deemed expedient by
the respective sections having them in charge.

The committee having in charge the recommendation to reor-
ganize the system, made a partial report in November, specially
with reference to evening schools. The committee reported a
resolution declaring it inexpedient to establish evening schools,
and a second resolution, offering accommodations to such per-
sons or associations as would take the care of such schools under
their own" charge. The first resolution was laid on the table,
and the second, after having been negatived, was reconsidered,
and referred to James I. Roosevelt, Jr., to report upon the legal
right of the Society to appropriate moneys to schools not under
the charge of the board. The report was adverse to the appro-
priation, and the opinion was adopted in the form of a resolu-
tion, declaring it inexpedient to make a distribution of its funds
to schools not under the management of the Society.

The Committee on Primary Schools reported that locations
for five schools had been selected, these being the initiative of
that branch of the system.

In November, the board received a communication from the
Trustees of the African Free Schools, stating that they had ap-
pointed a committee to confer with a similar committee of the
Society, relative to a union of the schools and a transfer of the
colored schools to the Society. Messrs. Samuel Demilt, George
T. Trimble, J. It. Hurd, S. F. Mott, and Lindley Murray, were
selected for the purpose.

The committee on the improvement of the system, having
been interrupted in their plans by the prevailing epidemic of
the summer months, renewed their labors with increased zeal
and earnestness in the fall, and, at the meeting in December,
submitted a report, accompanied with a revised code of the by-
laws, which formed the subject of protracted discussion, until
they were finally adopted, after a long and careful examination.
The general principles and measures recommended by the com-
mittee were the following

IMPROVEMENTS IN THE SYSTEM. 157

The extension of the system of primary schools, so as to em-
brace every portion of the city "where the younger children were
unable to attend the larger schools, as already contemplated and
partially introduced.

The consequent improved classification of pupils in the upper
schools.

The extension and advance of the grade of studies pursued
in the public schools.

The establishing of a high school, or academy, where the
higher branches should be taught.

The appointment of a larger number of qualified teachers,
retaining, however, the monitorial system, which would be im-
proved by this measure.

To accept the aid of gentlemen not connected with the board,
in the care of the primary schools, the large number of which
would call for the services of more committees, or " sections,"
than could be constituted from the board at that time.

To discontinue the system of rewards.

The appointment of a superintendent, or agent, in place of
the " visitor," whose special attention should be given to the
primary schools.

To regulate the depository and mode of distributing supplies.

The year being now at its close, the maturing of these plans
became the prominent measure for 1833, during which year the
system, materially improved and expanded, was placed in a
position of increased strength and importance.

The operations of the year 1833 were opened in the board by
the presentation of a memorial from the Trustees of the Manhat-
tanville Free School, asking the Society to adopt it as a part of
their system. The trustees had prepared a bill for enactment by
the Legislature authorizing the transfer, which was afterward
presented to that body ; but, after some discussion, it failed to
meet approval, and was lost. The transfer was, accordingly, not
made at that time, although it was subsequently consummated
under the authority of the Board of Education.

Pending the discussion of the new code of by-laws, the com-
mittee submitted a new chapter relative to evening schools, and
a resolution was adopted declaring it to' be expedient to establish
evening schools under the care of the board.

The proposition from the Trustees of the African Free Schools

158 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

for their transfer was reported upon favorably by the Committee
of Conference ; but an impediment being discovered which made
the authority of the Legislature necessary to secure the title to
the property when transferred, further action was postponed.

In October, Samuel F. Mott, the Treasurer, tendered his
resignation. The resignation was accepted, and George T. Trim-
ble was elected as his successor.

An application for a school from a number of respectable
citizens in that portion of the city near the Third avenue, be-
tween Fourteenth and Twenty-eighth streets, was presented to
the board. The Mayor, Gideon Lee, united in the request, and
a Committee on Locations was appointed to report thereon.
Messrs. Charles Oakley, J. Heard, B. S. Collins, Benjamin L.
Swan, and J. N. Wells, were selected for this purpose. The
committee were directed to select a location in the vicinity of
Avenue C and Seventh street.

On the 8th of November, School No. 14, in Houston street,
was opened, on which occasion Peter A. Jay, the President of
the Society, and Hon. Gideon Lee, the Mayor, delivered appro-
priate addresses. The school, at the following examination, met
the expectations of the trustees 283 boys, 256 girls, and 261 in
the primary department being present.

The report of the Committee on Locations was submitted at
the meeting of the board in February, 1834, at which time they
reported the purchase of four lots in Twenty-seventh street,
between Second and Third avenues, at $800 per lot ; nnd the
committee were authorized to select and purchase locations for
six primary schools.

Communications were received at the same meeting from a
committee, of which Gideon Lee was chairman, and T. Dwight,
Jr., secretary, appointed by a public meeting of citizens to pro-
mote the formation of a school for the special instruction of
common school teachers ; and from a joint meeting of conference
of that committee, and a committee of the council of the Uni-
versity, of which Rev. Archibald Maclay,' D.D., was chairman,
inviting the appointment of a committee on behalf of the board
to confer with them on the subject. A committee was accord-
ingly appointed, consisting of Robert C. Cornell, Gulian C. Ver-
planck, and J. I. Roosevelt, Jr.

The board were enabled in their annual report, published in

EVENING SCHOOLS. 159

May, 1834, to state that the number of pupils in the schools was
11,205 ; the receipts, including a balance of $15,000, were
$100,056.31, and the expenditures were $91,656.10. The debt of
the Society amounted to $40,000, due to the Bank for Savings,
and secured by bond and mortgage on the property of the So-
ciety.

The salaries of the teachers had been raised during the year,
so as to give the principals of the male departments $1,000, to
principals of female departments, $400, and to assistant teachers
in the female and primary departments, $160 to $250. The sal-
ary of monitors ranged from $25 to $200. There were then
employed forty-nine teachers, twenty-eight assistant teachers,
and seventy-five monitors, to whom $35,600 were annually paid
for their services.

The experiment of evening schools for apprentices had been
made during the winter of 1833-'34, four schools having been
kept open for six months, from October to March. The result
was satisfactory, although some difficulties had arisen which
served to impair their usefulness.

The close of the twenty-ninth year of the existence of the
Society, in view of the extent of the system which had been
developed by its labors and the good which had been done, was
an occasion of pleasure and congratulation. The promising con-
dition of the schools, the practical value of the new measures,
which had been fairly tried and found eminently useful, the lib-
eral endowment from the public treasury, and the evidences of
growing interest with which the institution was regarded by
many of the prominent men of the city, as well as by distin-
guished strangers, w r ere at once rewards and incentives of no
small magnitude, and the board addressed itself to the labors of
the future with confidence and hope.

160 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER VIII.

BISHOP DUBOIS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL No. 6. 1834.

Application of Bishop Dubois to the Trustees Action of the Board Committee
Appointed Report of the Committee Expurgation of School-Books.

THE reader will recollect that, in the year 1821, previous to
the controversy with the Trustees of the Bethel schools, the
Board of Trustees of the Public School Society had resolved to
occupy the ground ibelow Bleecker street, and between Broad-
way and Bowery, by the erection of a commodious school-build-
ing. The location was chosen in Mott street, not far from St.
Patrick's Cathedral, on the spot which it still occupies. The con-
dition of the children attracted the attention of Rev. Dr. Du-
bois, then Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese of New York,
and he was earnestly solicitous to improve the social and moral
condition of the multitudes of young persons of both sexes who
inhabited that portion of the city. No man professing the Chris-
tian faith, and a witness of the destitution, moral and intellect-
ual, of hundreds who were either nominally or really professors
of the faith which he taught, could fail to be profoundly con-
cerned at the spectacle. The benevolent bishop, moved as well
by his philanthropy as by his zeal to have the young instructed
in the doctrines of his Church, devised a plan for making avail-
able all the agencies and facilities which could be used in this
benevolent object. He therefore made an application to the
Board of Trustees in the following form, wliich was laid before
that body at a meeting held on the 1st of August, 1834 :

The Roman Catholic Bishop, anxious to promote the education of the
children belonging to his persuasion around St. Patrick's, begs leave to
submit to the Board of Managers of the Public Schools the following re-
quests, which he considers as sufficient to ensure the confidence of Catholic
parents, and remove the false excuses of those who cover their neglect under
the false pretext of religion, which they do not practice. He assures the

BISHOP DUBOI8. 161

board that he is influenced by no sectarian motive, no views of proselytism,
and that he is as much averse to encroach upon the conscience of others, as
to see others encroach upon his. As his demands are grounded upon u long
experience of the evils produced by the want of those regulations abuses
which it would require a long time to explain he hopes the board will rely
upon "his candor in this case.

1st. That the board would permit him to present a Catholic teacher for
that school, subject, of course, to the examination and approbation of the
board, and also to the removal by the board, whenever they think it fit,
according to the rules admitted for the other schools.

3d. That the use of the school shall be admitted to the Bishop, or
clergyman appointed by him, with a society of young men employed by
him, on Sundays, for the purpose of giving to the Roman Catholic children
instructions in their religion ; and of keeping a Sunday school in the eve-
ning for poor apprentices and servants, who have no other time to devote to
their education.

3d. That no books shall be received in the school but such as will have
been submitted to the Bishop, as free from sectarian principles, or calum-
nies against his religion. And as many otherwise good books may require
only that such passages should be expunged, or left out in binding, that on
the recommendation of the Bishop, the board will order it to be done.

4th. That the bishop will be permitted to visit the school every now
and then, and submit such observations to the board as he may think calcu-
lated to improve the system of education, but so that their final adoption
may be left entirely to the judgment of the board.

5th. The bishop, moreover, begs leave to have evening instruction on
religion given only to the Roman 1 Catholic children by a clergyman appoint-
ed ad hoc by him after the school is broken up, any time between five and
seven.

6th. As the School of the Sisters has been burnt in the late conflagra-
tion in Mulberry street, by which accident more than two hundred girls
have been thrown out of education, if the upper part of the school could
be conceded to them, with. a different passage from that of the boys, until,
at least, another school-house could be built on their own premises, this
new favor would add to the gratitude of the bishop ; but, if found imprac-
ticable, may be dispensed with by the bishop having that school in the very
inconvenient, unwholesome, and dark school-room under St. Patrick's.

Should the above requests be objectionable, could not one of the school-
houses, which the bishop heard was for sale for want of sufficient scholars,
be obtained en easy terms, and bought by the Trustees of St. Patrick's ?

The proposition was considered, and, after mature discussion,
tne following preamble and resolutions were adopted :

Whereas, The Constitution of the Public School Society offers and en-
sures to all classes and denominations of our fellow-citizens a free and equal
participation in the advantages which it affords ; and, whereas, the religious
11

162 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

and moral instruction is given in the public schools entirely free from sec-
tarianism, and it always has been and is now the design and endeavor of
the trustees so to conduct them as that all sects may have their children
educated therein, without fear of their peculiar religious views being inter-
fered with; and, whereas, the propositions made by the Catholic bishop
contain requirements of privileges from this Society, which have never been
asked by, or granted to, any other, and which would be incompatible with
the constitutiton : therefore,

Resolved, That it is both unconstitutional and inexpedient to accede to
said propositions, but that it is deemed by the trustees highly desirable that
the Catholic children generally should attend the public schools, and that
the interest and cooperation of the bishop be requested in promoting this
object.

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to wait on the bishop, furnish
him with a copy of the preceding preamble and resolution, and give him
such verbal explanations as may be proper ; and particularly, that they in-
form him that the use of one of the rooms in each of the public school
buildings is freely granted to any denomination of Christians for Sabbath-
school instruction ; and that, if there be in any of the school-books used
in the schools, matter which can fairly be considered objectionable by any
sect, the trustees would deem it a duty to have such matters erased, or .the
use of the book discontinued.

The committee to confer with Bishop Dubois was appointed,
in accordance with the resolution to that effect, and consisted of
Messrs. Lindley Murray, Charles Oakley, and James F. Depey-
ster. They discharged the duties assigned to them, and had an
interesting and amicable interview with the venerable prelate.
At the meeting of the board held on the 7th of November fol-
lowing, they submitted a report, which reads as follows :

The committee appointed to confer with the Roman Catholic bishop
respectfully report :

That they have had a satisfactory interview with Bishop Dubois, fur-
nished him with a copy of the resolutions adopted by the board, and gave
such verbal explanations as appeared proper. The committee propose that
a letter of the following import be addressed by the board to the bishop
and trustees of the Catholic schools, viz :

To Bishop Dulois and tlic Trustees of the Roman Catholic Schools :

GENTLEMEN : The attention of the Trustees of the Public School Society
having been recently called to the consideration of the expediency of some
means being adopted to induce a more general attendance of the children
of Catholics at the public schools, and Bishop Dubois having submitted
several propositions which were deemed by the board inconsistent with the
constitution of the Society, on account of their requiring certain privileges

BISHOP DUBOI8. 163

for one sect which had never been, nor could constitutionally be, granted to
any, the trustees, impressed with a strong desire that the children of our
Roman Catholic population should all attend the public schools as far as
their education is not otherwise provided for, would respectfully invite such
lay-members of the Catholic Church as feel an interest in this important
subject, and are disposed to take an active part in the management of these
schools, to become members of the Public School Society, and of its Board
of Trustees.

The board have always desired, and do now decidedly wish, so to con-
duct the schools under their charge, as that all Christian sects shall feel
entire freedom in sending their children to them. And if there be in the
system of the schools, or in the books used in them, any matter which can
reasonably be objected to by any denomination, they would gladly remove
the same. And this invitation is given with the conviction that, if accepted,
the gentlemen who may unite with us will have no difficulty in inducing
such alterations, if any be needed, as will or should convince the members of
your Church, that they may freely send their children to our schools, without
fear of their peculiar views being in any degree interfered with.

By order and in behalf of the trustees.

The letter submitted by the committee was adopted, and
ordered to be signed by the President and Secretary, and trans-
mitted to Bishop Dubois and the trustees of the schools connect-
ed with that church. No reply was ever sent to the communi-
cation, and the matter was abandoned.

The proposition of the bishop relative to the expunging or
erasing of certain offensive passages from the school-books was
not then acted on ; but on a revival of the school question, in
184rl-'42, a revision was carefully executed ly order of the
loard.

164 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SQCIETY.

CHAPTEK IX.

HISTORY CONTINUED. 1834 TO 1839.

Transfer of the African Schools to the Public School Society The Manumission Soci-
ety School for Female Monitors George T. Trimble Transfer of Property to
the Corporation Library for Teachers House of Refuge School for Male Moni-
tors Public School No. 16 School for Colored Children Music in No. 10
Death of Lloyd D. Windsor School in Oak Street Superintendent of Repairs
Workshop Loan Schools for German Children Study of French Public
School No. 16 Opened Surplus Revenue and the School Fund Opening of Cen-
tre Street Public School No. 1 Removed to William Street African Schools
Trustees' Hall Death of Joseph Lancaster Vagrancy Religious Instruction
Primary Schools School for German Children Lots for the Trustees' Hall Pur-
chased.

THE year 1834 was rendered specially interesting by the
transfer of the schools for colored children, under the care of the
Manumission Society, to the Public School Society, and the
foundation of the Female Normal School, under the name of
" School for Monitors."

The impediment which had affected the power of the Manu-
mission Society to give a perfect title'to the property proposed
to be transferred, was subjected to a close investigation, and an
application to the Legislature was found necessary. This appli-
cation was made, and the authority having been granted, nego-
tiations were immediately renewed, and on the 1st of August
the Committee of Conference were enabled to report the comple-
tion of their labors. The property consisted of two lots of
ground in Mulberry street, and the perpetual lease, for school
purposes, of two lots in William street, both sites having brick
buildings thereon. In addition to the real estate, the buildings
contained fixtures, furniture, books, cabinets of specimens, &c.,
as also similar apparatus in seven hired rooms, where smaller
schools were kept. The total appraised value of the property
was $12,132.22. The number of scholars on register on the 1st
of May was 1,608, with an average 'of 75 7. The school moneys

A TEACHERS LIBRARY. 165

in the possession of the Manumission Society, or to which it was
entitled for the year, amounted to $9,304.64, which sum was
paid over to the Treasurer of the Public School Society.

Resolutions comprising the proceedings of the committee
were adopted, and the following named gentlemen from the
Manumission Society were elected members of the board :
Messrs. Israel, Corse, Thomas Bussing, Edmund Willetts, Henry
Hinsdale, Charles Walker, Edmund Haviland, Thomas L. Jew-
ett, William L. Stone, and Ira B. Underbill. These gentlemen,
together with Samuel Wood and Mahlon Day, were appointed a
" section," or committee, for the care of the colored schools.
The title of No. 2, in Mulberry street, was changed to No. 1,
and No. 1, in William street, was changed to a primary school.

Messrs. Samuel W. Seton, George T. Trimble, Samuel De-
milt, Ira B. Underbill, and Thomas Bussing, were named as a
committee to report on the system of instruction pursued in the
schools, and recommend such changes as should make it conform
to that of the schools for white children.

The Executive Committee, at the same meeting, submitted
the report of a sub-committee on the expediency of establishing
a school for female monitors, or normal school, which recom-
mended the early organization of a school which should hold one
session of five hours on Saturday of each week, in Public School
No. 5, in Mott street. The report was referred back to the Ex-
'ecutive Committee, to be carried into efiect at the earliest day.

In November, George T. Trimble, the Treasurer, resigned
his office, his predecessor, Samuel F. Mott, having returned from
his visit to Europe. The latter gentleman, being nominated for
the office, was unanimously elected to perform the duties which
he had previously discharged with so much fidelity and ability.

The Board of Supervisors of the city and county held a
meeting on the 15th of October, at which it was resolved that a
special committee be appointed, to confer with the board of the
Society relative to the transfer of the property to the city, tak-
ing back a perpetual lease of the same for school purposes. The
proceedings were laid before the trustees at the quarterly meet-
ing in November, and a committee of fifteen was appointed on
behalf of the Society to negotiate the transfer.

In February, 1835, resolutions were adopted appointing a
committee to procure a library for the trustees and teachers, and

166 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

authorizing the expenditure of $100 the first year, and $50
annually thereafter, for works on education and science suitable
for common schools, and such periodicals and other publications
as related to popular instruction. Messrs. Gulian C. Yerplanck,
Hamilton Fish, and J. B. Collins were appointed as the com-
mittee.

A proposition submitted to the board by the managers of the
House of .Refuge, to adopt the school in that institution as one
of their number, was subsequently reported upon adversely, and
the measure was abandoned.

The necessity for a school in which instruction of a higher
grade should be given, had been already frequently urged upon
the board in various forms, and at the quarterly meeting in Feb-
ruary, the board directed the Executive Committee to take the
question of establishing such an institution into consideration.
In November, the committee reported in favor of a school for
male monitors, and the board authorized the organization of
such a school, to be held every evening, except Saturday and
Sunday of each week, from October to March, in No. 5, and the
rest of the year on Saturdays, at school-house No. 7.

The Committee on Locations reported in favor of the pur-
chase of four lots of ground in Fifth street, between Avenues C
and D, and also two lots of ground in Laurens street, for a school
for colored children ; both of which were confirmed by the
board.

The number of pupils at this time in the schools was 17,318,
and the expenses had been, for the year, about $115,000.

The year 1836 opened upon the Society with promises of
increasing usefulness, which were at the time unclouded by any
signs of adverse influences. The diligent care and faithfulness
of the board had been guaranteed by its previous history, and
they were cheerfully given with a singleness of purpose unsur-
passed by that of any similar institution in the world.

A new proposition was now destined to awaken the interest
of the board and of the schools. Mr. Darius E. Jones, a gentle-
man of cultivation and liberal views, who was a professional
musician, had, for a period of six months, been giving lessons in
vocal music in School No. 10 ; and the quarterly report from
that section, presented at the February meeting of the board in
1836, proposed and recommended the introduction of vocal

SUPERINTENDENT OF KEPAIBS. 167

music as a branch of instruction in the schools. The scheme
was referred to a committee, consisting of Messrs. Theodore
Dwight, Jr., James I. Roosevelt, Jr., John Morrison, Samuel B.
Childs, Samuel F. Mott, J. R. Hurd, and A. R. Lawrence. The
committee reported six months afterward, without any declara-
tion of policy other than that the matter should be left to the
discretion of the several sections, and with the proviso that,
where introduced, the Society should bear no expense in conse-
quence, and that the lessons in music should not interfere with
the regular course of school studies.

The Society and the cause of education met with a great loss,
in the early part of the year 1836, by the death of LLOYD D.
WINDSOR, Principal of No. 1, which position he had held for
twenty years, with great honor to himself and advantage to the
school. His loss was universally lamented, and he left behind
him a hallowed memory and an unsullied name.

At the meeting of the board held in August, the Property
Committee was authorized to erect a house on the lots in Fifth
street, for No. 16.

The Committee on Locations had selected a piece of property
on Roosevelt and Oak streets, near Pearl, and, acting under the
powers vested in them, had negotiated for its purchase, at the
price of $21,500. The board approved the selection of the com-
mittee, and in May, 1837, directed the President and Secretary
to complete the purchase and affix the seal of the Society to the
usual forms.

Peter A. Jay, Esq., the President of the Society, and Lind-
ley Murray, Secretary, having declined a renomination, their
offices were filled, at the annual election, by the choice of Robert
C. Cornell as President, and Anthony P. Halsey as Secretary.

Considerations of economy, both in time and expense, sug-
gested to the board the propriety of employing a Superintendent
of Repairs, who should have the care of the carpenter's work,
painting, glazing, &c., required upon the school-houses. The
bills for carpenter's work alone averaged from seven to eight
hundred dollars per month, and the remaining items of expendi-
ture for other work made a considerable aggregate- during the
year. The Property Committee were therefore directed, early
in the year, to examine the facts and make such recommenda-
tions as appeared to them necessary to meet the requirements of

168 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the system. A report from the committee, presented in August,
advised the erection of a workshop, and the appointment of a
competent foreman, at a salary not to exceed eight hundred dol-
lars per annum. The recommendations of the committee were
adopted, and the new feature thus introduced was successfully
and advantageously put into operation. A workshop was erect-
ed on the rear of the lots belonging to the Society, known as No.
61 Thompson street, and Amnon McVey was appointed foreman,
at a salary of $750 a year.

At the close of the year, the board, in view of the demand
for additional means to purchase lots and erect buildings, ordered
a loan of $30,000, to be secured by bond and mortgage upon the
property of the Society.

The great increase in the number of children of emigrants
from Europe suggested the adaptation of the system to meet the
wants of that class of the population, as far as it could be done
consistently with the objects of the Society and the powers vest-
ed in them by the Legislature. The rapid increase in the popu-
lation speaking the German language, and the very large num-
ber of children who were professedly shut out of school in con-
sequence of the absence of opportunities to speak or learn in x
their own tongue, were made the subject of earnest consideration
by the board, at the meeting in November of this year (1837).
Several communications had been laid before the Executive
Committee at its session on the 2d of the month, and the matter
was referred to a sub-committee, consisting of Messrs. Lyman
Cobb, Joseph B. Collins, Lindley Murray, G. T. Trimble, and
A. P. Halsey. This committee submitted a resolution to the
board, which was unanimously approved, and is introduced in
the following report to the Executive Committee. As this ques-
tion afterward became identified, in another form, with the name
of a gentleman who held a high position in the State, the pro-
ceedings in relation to this measure are entitled to a full detail,
independently of their own importance. The report is as fol-
lows :

The committee to whom was referred the application of John Rudy and
Thomas Cook, for the establishment of schools for the benefit of German
children, have had that subject under consideration, and have given the
attention to it which its importance demands. They are satisfied that a
necessity exists for affording to that class of our population opportunities

GERMAN AND FRENCH. 169

for receiving instruction which our present schools do not supply. Under
this conviction, and knowing that the present by-laws do not invest the
Executive Committee with power to establish schools of a different character
from the present primaries, they presented to the trustees, at their meeting
on the 17th of November, the following resolution, which was unanimously
adopted :

Resolved, That the Primary School Committee be authorized, under the
advice of the Executive Committee, to establish one or more primary schools
for the instruction of German children in the English language ; and that
the operation of existing by-laws be so far suspended as to allow the admis-
sion of children of that class to these schools from the ages of four to six-
teen years ; also, to place the schools for boys under the care of male teach-
ers, with such other modifications as may be necessary.

Believing that much good may be done to this class of emigrants by
thus affording them the means of instruction, the committee recommend
that an experiment be made with two schools for children of the ages con-
templated in the above resolution ; and as the object is simply to prepare
the children, to pursue their education in the existing public schools, and
thus to become identified with our native population, from doing which
they are debarred by the causes stated in the applications, they further
recommend that the term of attendance be limited to twelve months, and
that it be particularly urged upon the sections, under whose care they may
be placed, to give attention to this part of the subject, and to insist very
rigidly on a compliance with this rule ; and in special cases where the re-
moval to a public school may be beneficially made at an earlier period, to
cause it to be done.

They therefore ask leave to introduce the following resolution :

Resolved, That the Primary School Committee be requested to open two
schools for the instruction of German children in the English language,
under such regulations as may be necessary, and in compliance with the
general scope of the preceding remarks.

An effort was made to introduce another novelty into the
schools, by the formation of classes for the study of French.
The proceeding was altogether unofficial, and, the facts having
been brought to the attention of the Executive Committee, the
Committee on Teachers and Monitors investigated the matter,
and made the following report :

The committee on teachers and monitors report on the subject of instruc-
tion in the French language, that they find on inquiry that a teacher of
French offered his services some months since at Public School No. 10, pre-
vious to the present teacher of the male department taking charge thereof;
that with the implied, if not expressed, sanction of one or more of the
section, he was permitted to attend one hour a day, three times a week, and
to instruct all such of the scholars, male and female, as wished to attend,

170 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

and were willing to pay one dollar per quarter, the hour appropriated to
this object not being permitted or intended to interfere with the usual school
hours.

The committee also find that tuition in French has been allowed in
nearly all the other schools, on the same terms, precedent being assigned by
the teachers as a ground of permission, and generally without the previous
knowledge of the sections.

One or more of our teachers have become satisfied, from the experiment,
of the impolicy of the measure, and it would probably be permitted to
cease without any action of the trustees. But as none of the teachers appear
to have thought there was any illegality in the plan, so long as it was not
allowed to interfere with the usual school hours, your committee deem it
proper to say, that although they do not consider the teachers much, if any,
to blame for the past, as they have acted under an erroneous impression
and from good motives, yet they think it requisite that in future our teach-
ers should understand that the trustees are not willing that any person not
in the employ of the Society be allowed to give instruction in any branch
whatever, in our buildings, whether for pay or not, without the previous
sanction of the Board or Executive Committee.

The committee recommend the adoption of the folio wing resolutions :

1st. That the teachers be directed to put an end to the existing courses
of instruction in French, so soon as agreements made with the French in-
structor will permit.

2d. That the teachers be directed not to permit instruction in any
branch whatever to be given in our buildings, by any person not in the em-
ploy of the trustees, without the consent of the board.

The report and resolutions were adopted, and experiments of
the kind were not again made, except under the proper author-
ity and control of the several sections, or of the board.

The Property Committee, during the month of July, had
made contracts for the erection of a building on the lots in Fifth
street, between Avenues C and D, and the work was carried for-
ward with all the promptitude which the case permitted. The
house was completed and opened on the 27th of April, 1838,
and this circumstance was the first marked occurrence of the
new year, which was preceded, a few days before, by an order
for the purchase of lots in Thirteenth street for a new school,
No. 17, in order to relieve Nos. 3 and 12, which were over-
crowded with pupils, the new location making a very appropri-
ate site for a school.

The remarkable occurrences in our national and commercial
history, which render the years 1834 to 1842 memorable as a
development of grand economical laws, had matured in the first

TBUSTEES' HALL. 171

stage of their operation in a plethora in the national treasury,
arising from the vast receipts from the revenue on imports and
the sale of public lands. Under this state of things, a bill was
passed in Congress and became a law, depositing the surplus
revenue with the several States of the Union ; and that portion
which was deposited with the State of New York was, by a law
passed at the session of the Legislature (1837-'3S), appropriated
for school purposes. This became a source of increased and
very desirable revenue to the Public School Society, and, the
facts being committed to the board by Hon. Gulian 0. Yer-
planck, a committee on le subject was appointed, which re-
ported a statement of the measure, with a copy of the law, and
were thereupon discharged.

The Common Council had adopted resolutions and taken the
preliminary steps for the opening of Centre street to Chatham,
the Park at that time extending to an angle which made a cir-
cuitous route through Chambers street necessary for all other
than pedestrians. The extension required the demolition and
removal of No. 1, as that building occupied a position on the
line of the opening. The school for colored children, known as
No. 1, was located in William street, on lots leased from the
city, but which had been vacated soon after the transfer to the
Society in 1834, and a new house erected in Laurens, near
Broome street. The building in William street was occupied, at
the time of the extension, for public purposes, and, on its sur-
render to the Society, was replaced by a new and commodious
house, the schools, in the interval, being accommodated in hired
premises.

On the 4th of May, the name of the " African " schools was
changed to that of " Colored."

The average attendance for the year ending May 1, 1838, as
reported to the Commissioners of School Money, was 19,982, of
which 1,441 were colored children.

The increase in the business of the Society by the multiplica-
tion of schools, the system of supplies, &c., made it expedient to
secure sufficient apartments for the meetings of the board and its
committees, as well as to provide for the preservation of the
records, and a suitable depository. Only a part of these pur-
poses were originally contemplated in a resolution by which a
committee was appointed in November, 1837, to take such steps

172 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

as might be deemed necessary to procure a hall for meetings of
the board. The committee, in 1838, were directed, on their own
recommendations, to apply to the Common Council for the use
of an apartment in one of the public buildings, but the request
was not granted. The committee reported in favor of making
an appropriation of not over $1,500 a year for the purpose,
which should be expended in rent, or in " interest on the cost,"
as the case might be. The recommendation was adopted, and
the foundation laid for the " Trustees' Hall," now occupied by
the Board of Education.

The new building for No. 1, erected on the lots occupied as a
school for colored children, having been completed and prepared
for the reception of pupils, the dedication exercises were held on
the 16th of October. The scholars passed a creditable examina-
tion, and the audience were highly gratified at the condition of
the. school. Thirty of the trustees and a large number of visit-
ors were present on the occasion.

During the month of October, the friends of education in
New York were called to pay their tribute of respect to the
memory of JOSEPH LANCASTER, the distinguished and indefatiga-
ble laborer in the cause of popular instruction, and the founder
of the system known by his name, which had been so success-
fully adopted and improved by the Public School Society.

Mr. Lancaster took a great interest in the schools, and had
commenced a series of visits for the purpose of inspection and
counsel. On the 22d of October, an examination took place at
No. 7, in Chrystie street, at the close of which he left the school.
In crossing Grand street, he was thrown down by a horse and
carriage, and very seriously injured. He was taken to the house
of a friend, where his physicians attended him, but without
avail. He was called to his rest on the 24:th, two days after-
ward, and his remains were placed in the burying-ground of the
Society of Friends, in Houston street, between the Bowery and
Chrystie street.

On the announcement of the death of Mr. Lancaster in the
Board of Trustees, Benjamin Clark, Lindley Murray, and Sam-
uel F. Mott were appointed a committee to prepare a testimonial
to his memory ; which duty was performed, and the following
" minute " was directed to be engrossed by a competent pupil
of the public schools, and placed in the trustees' room :

TEIBUTE TO JOSEPH LANCASTER. 173

JOSEPH LANCASTER,

THE AUTHOR OF TUB MONITORIAL OR SYSTEM OF MUTUAL IXSTKIJCTIOK, OH1GINAI.LY KNOWN AS

THE LANCASTERIAN" SYSTEM,

WAS BOBS

*' NEAR LONDON ON THE 25TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1778,
AMD DIBD

AT WILLIAMSBUKGH, IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK,
ON THE 24TH B"A Y OF OCTOBER, A. D. 1838.

HE TRAVELLED EXTENSIVELY IN BOTH HEMISPHERES, FOR THE PURPOSE OP
INTRODUCING AND PROMOTIKG HIS

A SYSTEM WHICH IS RAPIDLY AMELIORATING THE CONDITION OF MAN,
AND EXTENDING T 1! K BLESSINGS OF

EDUCATION

TO MILLIONS WHO MIGHT OTHERWISE HAVE LIVED AND DIBD IN THE DARKNESS OF

IGNORANCE.

IN THE PROSECUTION OF THIS NOBLE AND BENEVOLENT OBJECT
HE WAS ON A VISIT TO THK CITY OF NEW YORK, AND HAD JUST LEFT ONE OF THK

PUBLIC SCHOOLS,

WHEN HB MET WITH THE CASUALTY WHICH IN A FEW BOCRS TERMINATED HIS MORTAL CAREER.

AS A

TRIBUTE OF RESPECT

TO HIS MEMORY,

THE TRUSTEES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

HAVE CAUSED THIS SHEET TO BE EXECUTED BY A PUPIL OF PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. , IN THK

CITY OF NEW YORK.

174 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Early in life, Mr. Lancaster had become impressed with the
advantages of the system of mutual instruction, and resolved
to develop his method at the most favorable opportunity. He
opened a school in Southwark, in 1789, where he taughf almost
gratuitously. The success of his labors soon attracted atten-
tion to his system, and subscriptions began to pour in upon
him to sustain him in his benevolent work, by which he was
enabled not only to enlarge his own school, but to travel
through the kingdom and introduce it in other cities. Numer-
ous schools were established under his personal supervision.
Dr. Bill now appeared as a rival, and claimed to be the origi-
nator of the monitorial system, and by his personal and pro-
fessional influence he commanded so much attention, that Mr.
Lancaster, who was a member of the Society of Friends, was
overborne in the competition, and compelled to yield to the
pressure of his more pretentious and successful rival. He
visited the United States and Canada, the Legislature of which
province made him an appropriation to assist him in develop-
ing the school system ; but, not deriving sufficient income from
that source to complete his plans, he was again forced to re-
tire from the active pursuit of his scheme, and sought a home
in New York, with the expectation of giving some additional evi-
dences of the perfection to which he had brought his system. He
had submitted a proposition to the Executive -Committee to make
an experiment with forty children, and with the aid of ten others
as monitors, to teach them in from four to six weeks to read and
spell accurately. Mr. Lancaster* was reluctant to communicate
the details of his plan to the committee, or to permit them to be
present at any of his exercises. The committee reported unfa-
vorably upon the application, but recommended that he be
allowed the use of a room for the purpose of teaching his class-
es. The report was accepted, laid on the table, and a resolu-
tion adopted declaring it to be inexpedient to grant the appli-
cation.

Mr. Lancaster shared the fate of most pioneers in literature,
science, and reform, for he never amassed any pecuniary rewards
from his labors. A few friends had, however, purchased a small
annuity for him, and he was devoting his time to general visita-
tion and advisory examinations when his labors were terminated
by his death.

VAGRANCY. 175

The condition of the vagrant and unemployed children of
the city was made again the subject of special consideration by
the Executive Committee, and referred to a sub -committee to
devise plans for correcting the evil. The committee reported a
project, of which the leading features were :

1st. To appoint three visitors, who should visit certain sec-
tions of the city where such labors were most required, and urge
upon children and parents the necessity and duty of improving
the privileges offered them.

2d. To procure the passage of a law making it an offence in
a minor to be found idle and uninstructed, and subject to com-
mitment if reformation did not take place.

3d. The establishment of a Manual Labor Farm School, to
which such children should be sent when arrested under the law.

Visits, printed addresses, handbills, and other means of se-
curing the greatest publicity, were also recommended. The
report was adopted, and a committee to prepare a memorial to
the Corporation of the city submitted a draft of the paper they
had prepared, in which similar views and plans were advocated.
The memorial was adopted, and ordered to be properly signed,
authenticated, and submitted to the Common Council. Nothing,
however, resulted, except indirectly, from these efforts, as the
plans were never matured, the board having failed to obtain the
patronage or the sanction of either the city or the State.

At the meeting of the Executive Committee, November 26,
a resolution was adopted appointing a committee, consisting of
Joseph B. Collins, Samuel K. Childs, and William L. Stone, to
inquire into the expediency of introducing into the schools suit-
able books setting forth " the principles of the Christian religion,
free from all sectarian bias." A report was submitted, and an
amendment of the by-laws was proposed, defining the position
of the Society ; bnt the agitation of the school question, which
was then threatening the public mind, and which followed soon
afterward, arrested any further action. The agent was directed
to ascertain, by a new census of the schools, what proportion of
the pupils attended Sunday schools.

A committee was appointed, in the early part of the year
(1839), to examine and report upon the comparative advantages
of the primary schools and primary departments. The first
were the schools established in various localities, in order to place

176 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

school privileges within the reach of the youngest children, many
of whom would have been unprovided for, in consequence of the
distance of the larger schools from their abodes. The result was
much in favor of the departments of the large schools, but the dis-
crepancy was easily understood and recognized, and the commit-
tee recommended such a revision of the manual as would not
only develop the primary schools and make them more efficient,
but would also remove the difficulties which apparently existed
in regard to their cost and attendance. The committee were
decided in their conviction that moral and physical education
are far more important for children under six years of age than
instruction in letters, and that frequent intermissions and varied
exercises for children of that age are necessary, while the con-
finement of the scholars to a bench for hours in succession is
injurious and improper. The recommendations of the commit-
tee were adopted.

The experiment of a school for the special instruction of Ger-
man children had now been fairly tried, and the Primary School
Committee was requested to submit a report thereon. They
ascertained that, during the first year, 380 pupils had been ad-
mitted, of whom 328 entered the first class. Of these, 57 had
learned to read, and, out of this number, 15 had removed to the
country, and 27 had entered upon some business occupation.
The object of the school which was, to make it introductory to
the public schools had been lost sight of by the teacher, as no
transfers had been made, in consequence of the reluctance of the
scholars to leave the teacher and the school to which they had
become attached, and the apprehension, which was strengthened
by the declaration of many, that they would abandon school
altogether if so transferred. The teacher desired that certain
privileges in regard to advanced lessons might be granted, but
the committee were unwilling to concur with the plan, except in
a modified form. They recommended a school for German girls
in the eastern section of the city, and two other schools, one for
each sex, in any locality where they appeared to be required.
The schools were to be strictly conducted as primary schools,
except that the boys' schools might be under the care of a male
teacher, and that minors of any age over four years might be
admitted.

The committee, on obtaining a suitable place for the use of

TRUSTEES' HALL. 177

the Society for its business departments, reported, in June, in
favor of purchasing the property on the northwest corner of
Grand and Elm streets, at a cost of $19,500, and the erection
thereon of a suitable building. The recommendation was adopt-
ed, the appropriate committees were directed to prosecute the
work with all the promptitude the case demanded, the plans
were procured, and the building speedily put under contract.
Thus closed the year 1839.
12

178 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER X.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL QUESTION. 1840.

Annual Message of Governor Seward Petition of Roman Catholics to the Common
Council Remonstrance of the Trustees of the Public School Society Remon-
strance of the Executive Committee Commissioners of School Money Commu-
nication from Rev. Felix Varela School Books Roman Catholic Association
The Freeman's Journal Established Public Meetings of Roman Catholics Bishop
Hughes Resolutions Address to the Public Rev. Dr. Pise Catholic Memorial
to the Common Council Board of Aldermen Committee Appointed Remon-
strance of Public School Society Remonstrance of Methodists Special Meeting
of Common Council to Hear the Petitioners and Remonstrants Speech of Bishop
Hughes Speech of Theodore Sedgwick Speech of Hiram Ketchum Rev. Dr.
Bond Bishop Hughes Samuel F. Mott Second Session Speech of Rev. Dr.
Bond Speech of David M. Reese, M. D. Speech of Rev. John Knox Speech
of Rev. Dr. Bangs Speech of Rev. Dr. Spring Closing Speech of Bishop
Hughes Rejoinder of Mr. Ketchum Report of the Committee Application of
Roman Catholics for School Fund Distribution Negatived.

THE repeated controversies in which the Society had been
engaged relative to the distribution of moneys raised for the pur-
poses of common school education, and the legislation thereon,
had not yet put to rest the desire of a portion of the citizens for
a specific 1 appropriation for the support of schools under a de-
nominational control. The efforts of the several parties making
these appeals to the Common Council, the Legislature of the
State, and their fellow-citizens, were now renewed by a more
fully organized effort than had yet been made. This controversy
eventually influenced the action of the political parties in the
city, and threatened, were it not terminated, to override the
broader issues at large throughout the State, and become the
battle-ground for contending partisan interests. The beginning
of the year 1840 was the period chosen for the movement.

The Governor of the State, Hon. William II. Seward, in re-
viewing the condition of the common schools in his annual mes-
sage, made the following recommendations, which, as they were

ooy. SEWARD'S MESSAGE. 179

deemed by many to have been submitted with a reference to the
pending controversy, are worthy of a place in this connection :

Although our system of public education is well endowed, and has been
eminently successful, there is yet occasion for the benevolent and enlight-
ened action of the Legislature. The advantages of education ought to be
secured to many, especially in our large cities, whom orphanage, the de-
pravity of parents, or some form of accident or misfortune seems to have
doomed to hopeless poverty and ignorance. Their intellects are as suscepti-
ble of expansion, of improvement, of refinement, of elevation, and of direc-
tion, as those minds which, through the favor of Providence, are permitted
to develop themselves under the influence of better fortunes. They inherit
the common lot to struggle against temptations, necessities, and vices ; they
are to assume the same domestic, social, and political relations, and they are
born to the same ultimate destiny.

The children of foreigners, found in great numbers in our populous cities
and towns, and in the vicinity of our public works, are too often deprived
of the advantages of our system of public education, in consequence of
prejudices arising from difference of language or religion. It ought never
to be forgotten that the public welfare is as deeply concerned in their educa-
tion as in that of our own children. I do not hesitate, therefore, to recom-
mend the establishment of schools, in which they may be instructed by
teachers speaking the same language with themselves, and professing the
same faith. There would be no inequality in such a measure, since it bap-
pens from the force of circumstances, if not from choice, that the responsi-
bilities of education are in most instances confided by us to native citizens ;
and occasions seldom offer for a trial of our magnanimity by committing
that trust to persons differing from ourselves in language or religion.

Since we have opened our country, and all its fulness, to the oppressed
of every nation, we should evince wisdom equal to such generosity, by
qualifying their children for the high responsibilities of citizenship.

The trustees of the Catholic schools prepared and submitted
to the Common Council an application for a portion of the school
moneys, which was transmitted to that body during the month
of February, and printed on the 2d of March.

At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Society,
held on the 20th of the same month, for the purpose 6f consider-
ing what measures should be taken with reference to this appli-
cation, it was deemed expedient to call a meeting of the Board
of Trustees, to be convened on the 24th, that a carefully-advised
course might be recommended. A committee, consisting of-
Samuel F. Mott, George T. Trimble, A. P. Halsey, Robert C.
Cornell, Lindley Murray, Stephen Allen, and Peter Cooper, was
appointed, to prepare a remonstrance against granting the appli-

180 THE PCBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

cation, and to adopt such other measures as they might deem
necessary. The committee were also authorized to employ coun-
sel, if the case demanded legal services.

At the meeting of the Board of Trustees held pursuant to
the call of the Executive Committee, the following remonstrance
was adopted, as a declaration from the trustees, to be followed
by a more carefully prepared examination of the question by the
Executive Committee.

To the Common Council :

The undersigned, in their associate capacity as Trustees of the Public
School Society, and in their individual character as citizens, hereby respect-
fully but urgently remonstrate against the granting of a request presented
by the trustees of the Catholic schools for a participation in the common
school moneys.

Your remonstrants are opposed to this proposition, as being unconstitu-
tional and inexpedient.

Unconstitutional because in our State charter, and in our statute-book,
the common school fund is appropriated to and for the benefit and support
of common schools only and exclusively ; and we deem it self-evident that
no school can be so called, unless opened to all classes and descriptions of
citizens, and conducted on a system to which none can reasonably object.
Such is not the case with the Catholic schools. The peculiar sectarian
tenets of that faith are part, and by them thought to be an essential part of
the course of instruction ; and hence all unbelievers in Catholic doctrines
are unwilling, and may with good reason object, to send their children to
such schools.

Unconstitutional because it is utterly at variance with the letter and
spirit of our chartered rights, and with the genius of our political institu-
tions, that the community should be taxed to support an establishment in
which sectarian dogmas are inculcated, whether that establishment be a
school or a church.

Inexpedient because the public schools, open to all without discrimina-
tion, and so conducted that no reasonable objection can be made by any to
sending their children to them, are now in a very flourishing and satisfactory
condition, and are annually increasing in numbers and usefulness ; and
which schools would, by the admission of church schools to participate in
the school fund, be crippled, and probably destroyed.

Inexpedient because the question was fully examined by the Common
Council in 1822, and all the church schools, including the Catholic, which
had previously drawn from the school fund, were cutoff; and the great
principle of non-sectarianism adopted as the basis for subsequent appropria-
tions from this fund.

Inexpedient because, by the concentration of the fund in one channel,
a much greater amount of good is produced, than could be the case were it
divided and subdivided among many ; for in the public schools the same

REMONSTRANCE OF THE SOCIETY. 181

expense for teachers, &c., would be incurred in a school of 100 or 150, as in
one of double the number.

Induced by. these leading positions, which they consider fully tenable,
and by others which brevity induces the omission of, your remonstrants
urgently protest against the admission of the Catholic, or any other sectarian
school, to a participation in the public moneys. And of such great import-
ance do they consider the subject, that, unless the Common Council are pre-
pared, on a mere statement of these objections, to deny the application,
your remonstrants respectfully request that they may be heard, in defence
of their positions, before a joint meeting of your two boards.

Our Executive Committee will prepare and present a remonstrance more
in detail.

The committee appointed, as already stated, to act on behalf
of the Society, prepared a remonstrance, which was promptly
printed for general distribution, as well as for the use of the
members of the Common Corfu cil. This paper was adopted by
the Executive Committee, as follows :

To the Honorable the Common Council of the City of New York, the Remon-
strance of the Public School Society, ~by their Executive Committee, RESPECT-
FULLY SHEWETH :

That your remonstrants learn with regret and surprise, that the Trustees
of the Catholic Schools, have petitioned for a portion of the school fund, to
support the schools under their care. Nearly twenty years have elapsed
since sectarian schools were excluded from a participation in this fund, and
your remonstrants had indulged a hope, that the question was forever at
rest.

The injustice of taxing the whole community for the support of sectarian
schools is so manifest, and it is so glaringly incompatible with the genius of
our political institutions, that the naked proposition would seem to carry
with it its own refutation. The Constitution of this State declares, " that
the proceeds of certain lands belonging to the State, together with the fund,
denominated the common school fund, shall be, and remain a perpetual fund,
the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of
common schools throughout the State."

So far as your memorialists are aware, there is not in any law regulating
the general distribution of this fund, nor in either of the numerous circulars
issued by the Secretary of State, in his capacity as Superintendent of Com-
mon Schools, is there the most remote allusion to sectarian instruction in
religion, except that on one occasion, after citing some ten or twelve class-
books of a strictly literary and moral character, he refers to Sampson's
" Beauties of the Bible," as a compilation well adapted to common schools ;
but as if aware of the delicate ground on which he was treading, the secre-
tary immediately remarks, " that the selection has been made without
reference to any disputed points of doctrine ; and it is entirely free from all

182 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

sectarian spirit ; " thus evincing his own view of the necessity of excluding
sectarian instruction from the common school system of education.

Owing to the impracticability of apportioning the school moneys among
the citizens of this city in the manner adopted for the districts, the Legis-
lature was induced in 1813, to pass a law authorizing " such incorporated
religious societies in the city of New York, as supported, or should establish
charity schools," to participate in the income of the school fund. That
income was then Tery small, and there was no direct tax on the city for
school purposes, independent of the school fund tax. The amount thus
drawn was so inconsiderable, that the subject did not attract much attention,
until 1822, when it was discovered that one congregation, or rather its pastor,
had embarked in the. business of school-keeping as matter of speculation,
and had established three charity schools.

By deceptive returns he managed to draw from the fund a greater sum
than was required for the payment of teachers (to which its application was
restricted by law). He then procured an enactment, authorizing him to
apply the surplus to the erection of school-houses and all other purposes of
education. Under a liberal construction of this clause, he ventured to build
a church, with miserable accommodations for a school on the basement floor.
These proceedings alarmed not only your memorialists, but the citizens
generally, as well as several of the churches who had received and applied
the public money in good faith, and they united in asking of the Legislature
a remedy for these abuses. So important was the subject deemed, that the
Corporation of the city, without a negative vote, joined in the application,
which finally brought the whole question before the State government.

The committee charged with its consideration, after a patient investiga-
tion, during which, gross fraud and peculation were proved to have been
practiced by the clergyman referred to, made a report in which the following
language occurs :

There is, however, one general principle, of no ordinary magnitude, to
which the committee would beg leave to call- the attention pf the house.

It appears that the city of New York is the only part of the State, where
the school fund is at all subject to the control of religious societies. This
fund is considered by your committee purely of a civil character, and there-
fore it never ought, in their opinion, to pass into the hands of any corpora-
tion, or set of men, who are not directly amenable to the constituted civil
authorities of the government, and bound to report their proceedings to the
public. Your committee forbear, in> this place, to enter fully into this branch
of the subject, but they respectfully submit whether it is not a violation of a
fundamental principle of our legislation to allow the funds of the State,
raised by a tax on the citizens, and designed for civil purposes, to be subject
to the control of any religious corporation. [See page 70.]

The report was approved, and the only law of this State which ever
authorized an ecclesiastical or religious association to use the " common
school fund," was stricken from the statute book, and the right conferred on
the corporation of this city, of designating the " societies and schools " to
which the money should be given.

The conflict was thus transferred from Albany to New York, and the

REMONSTRANCE OF THE SOCIETY. 183

whole question was brought by the parties interested, before the municipal
Government, and by them referred to a committee, whose report, after a
patient and laborious investigation, is, perhaps, among the most impartial,
able, and conclusive documents that ever was presented to your honorable
body.

After a merited compliment to the respectable churches, and religious
societies, who participated in the fund, and whose delegates had been fully
heard, the committee concluded their report as follows : * " but the weight
of the argument, as urged before them, and which they have endeavored to
condense in this report, and the established constitutional and political doc-
trines, which have a bearing on this question, and the habits and modes of
thinking of the constituents at large of this board, require, in the opinion
of your committee, that the common school fund should be distributed for
civil purposes only, as contra-distinguished from those of a religious or
sectarian description." The recommendation of the committee was approved
by the Common Council, and all church schools were, and continue to be,
excluded from participating in the fund.

Your memorialists were thus induced to prosecute the cause of general
education with renewed vigor, but finding the sum derived from the school
fund, and its equivalent local tax, very inadequate to the pressing wants of
a rapidly increasing population, they procured the signatures of several thou-
sands of our largest tax-paying citizens, to a petition to the Common Council,
requesting that an application might be made to the Legislature, for author-
ity to lay " an annual tax of not less than half a mill on the dollar, upon
the amount of assessed property in the city, for the purpose of free and
common education ; the funds thus to be raised, to be kept separate from all
others, and sacred to the purposes for which it is designated."

The whole tenor of this petition clearly shews, that it was in aid of " the
common schools of the city," and of " free and common education," that the
petitioners asked to be taxed. They declare that their object is " to provide
for the security and permanency of our republican institutions by the gen-
eral diffusion of knowledge."

Does any person believe that a sectarian education is necessary to the
attainment of these objects ? Or, that a diversion of the fund to ecclesias-
tical uses would not be a violation of the " purposes for which it was
designed ? "

Your memorialists dwell with stress on this petition, because from it
arose the present tax of four eightieths of one per cent, which is something
more than three fifths of the entire sum devoted to the common school
education in this city.

It is perhaps the only petition that ever was presented to a Legislative
Body soliciting the privilege of being taxed. It was signed understandingly
and on mature reflection, by thousands whose immediate pecuniary interest
was adverse to the prayer : and hence, your memorialists respectfully urge,

* See Document, dated April 11, 1825, signed & COWDEKY (Chairman), THOMAS
EOLTON, E. W. KING. [See Appendix A.]_

184 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

that a strict and sacred regard, in the distribution of its avails, should be
had to the motives which influenced the petitioners.

With the greatly augmented means afforded by the proceeds of this tax,
your, memorialists were enabled not only largely to increase the number, but
greatly to improve the quality of the public schools. At this time there are
ninety-seven schools of the various grades, in the benefits of which, upward
of twenty thousand children participated during the past year. The quality
of these schools, it is believed, may safely challenge a comparison with those
of the same grade, in this or any other country. The question is now sub-
mitted to the guardians of the city whether these schools shall be sustained
or abandoned ; and the funds created for their support, diverted to the sup-
port of ecclesiastical establishments.

Your memorialists feel warranted in presenting this issue, because the
income of the " Public School Society " is scarcely sufficient to sustain the
present public schools ; and it cannot be doubted, that if the petition of the
" Trustees of the Catholic Schools," is successful, similar applications will
immediately be made by the numerous sects into which the Christian church
is divided. And it is not perceived upon what ground they could under
such circumstances be denied, nor why associations of unbelievers (of which
there are a number in this city,) may not with equal, and in some respects
greater propriety, demand and receive a portion of the fund.

The amount annually paid to teachers in the " public schools," is about
$60,000. And it is a well-known feature of the system of education prac-
tised in the public schools, that a reduction of one half the number of
pupils in each school (which is a probable consequence of the contingency
referred to,) would not materially lessen the expense of tuition, without
serious detriment to those remaining.

Should the school money be divided and subdivided among church
schools, some of which would necessarily be very small, your memorialists
entertain a confident belief, that the important cause of general education
would receive a fatal check ; for, besides the loss sustained in frittering away
the fund among small schools, too numerous and diversified to undergo the
healthy supervision of the commissioners, the managers of those schools,
having what they might deem higher and more important objects in view,
in the inculcation of religious creeds or dogmas, could scarcely fail to neg-
lect the literary for the religious culture of the children's minds.

If it be urged that the Catholic schools are open to all without distinc-
tion, as to religious sect ; your remonstrants reply, that this fact only en-
hances the objection to granting the prayer of their petition ; which then
virtually is, that they may be enabled to gain proselytes at the public ex-
pense ; and that, too, in the most effectual way, by an influence exerted on
the tender and susceptible minds of youth. Such an applicaton of public
money is not, perhaps, inconsistent with purity of motive ; but can it be
done with justice to those who, with at least equal sincerity, entertain
direclly opposite views ?

It is not understood that the Catholic clergy object to the public schools,
on account of any religious doctrines taught in them, but because the pecu-

REMONSTRANCE OF THE SOCIETY. 185

liar doctrines of the Church of Rome are not taught therein : and they now
ask for a portion of the public money in order that these doctrines may be
taught, in connection with the kind of instruction for which alone these
moneys were raised. And here it may be proper to state, that several inter-
views were formerly had with the Catholic bishop, for the purpose of remov-
ing any reasonable objections he might have to the system of instruction in
the public schools, or to the books used in them ; and it was proposed to
submit the books to his inspection, in order that they might, if found objec-
tionable, undergo expurgation.

In selecting teachers for the public schools, no regard is had to the sec-
tarian views of the candidates ; and since the application now under con-
sideration, it has been ascertained that at least six of the teachers belong to
the Roman Catholic Church.

Your memorialists disclaim all feeling of hostility to the respectable
body against whose petition they remonstrate. Nor are they conscious of
a want of sympathy for the oppressed of other lands, who seek an asylum in
this ; on the contrary, they act under a firm conviction that the sooner such
persons abandon any unfavorable prejudices with which they rr.ay arrive
among us, and become familiar with our language, and reconciled to our
institutions and habits, the better it will be for them, and for the country
of their adoption. If this be true, the best interests of all will be alike
promoted by having their children mingle with ours in the public seminaries
of learning.

The theory and practice of our happy and equal form of government is,
to protect every religious persuasion, and support none. It was supposed
for ages, that religion could not flourish without aid from the strong arm of
secular power ; and even now this delusion prevails extensively in the old
world. The political compact by which these United States are governed,
divorced the unholy alliance between Church and State. Yet, until within
a recent period, the lingering remains of prejudice derived from pious but
bigoted ancestors, retained one feature of the exploded system, in the code
of a neighboring State ; but even there, those laws which taxed the people
at large for the support of sectarian schools, have been abrogated ; and it
remains to be seen whether the city of New York will take the first step in
a retrograde course.

Your memorialists have no interest in the pending question, other than
is common to the great mass of their fellow-citizens. But having devoted
much time and gratuitous labor, in building up the present unrivalled pub-
lic-school system, their feelings are more ardently embarked in the cause ;
and they have greatly erred in estimating the tone of the public mind, if the
views here expressed are not fully sustained by public opinion.

Powerful and pervading as the influence of party politics is known to be,
it is believed that there are principles so dear, and so deeply rooted, that
honest men, of every party, will lose sight of inferior objects, and unite in
their support.

In conclusion, your remonstrants refer to the annexed communication and
resolutions of the " Commissioners of School money," who derive their ap-

186 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

pointment from your honorable body, and whose duty it is to visit all schools
that participate in the school fund, and report their condition to the Cor-
poration of this city, and to the Superintendent of Common Schools at
Albany. This document, it will be seen, fully sustains the reasoning and
conclusions of your remonstrants.

All which is respectfully submtitted.

R C. CORNELL, President.
A. P. HALSET, Secretary.

Nw YORK, Feb. 29, 1840.

The trustees of the Society having sent communications rela-
tive to the application of the trustees of the Catholic schools' to
the Board of Commissioners of School Money, the subject came
up before the board at their meeting on the 29th of February.
The following extract from the minutes of that day was pub-
lished by authority :

At a meeting of the Commissioners of School Money, held at the City
Hall of New York, on the 29th day of February, 1840,

A communication having been received, at a former meeting, from the
Trustees of the Public School Society of New York, referring to an applica-
tion now pending before the Common Council, which prays that the schools
in this city established and governed by one of the denominations of Chris-
tians, be admitted to a participation of the common school moneys ; and
this board, deeming it their duty to consider and answer any communica-
tion connected with the interests of the schools subject to their visitation :

It is therefore unanimously Resolved, As the opinion of this board, that
schools created and directed by any particular religious society should
derive no aid from a fund designed lor the common benefit of all the youth
of this city, without religious distinction or preference.

That an appropriation of the school moneys to establishments controlled
by any individual sect, would be unjust to all other denominations not simi-
larly favored, and constitute a partiality irreconcilable with the spirit of our
political institutions ; would narrow the liberal and expanded scheme of
public education, for which the community at large, without religious dis
crimination, is taxed ; would make the common school money a source of
intrigue, cupidity, and contention among the various portions of our citizens
who are divided in tenets of faith ; and would, in its progressive results,
render useless many of tjie commodious structures erected in this city at the
general expense, which are now the thronged seats of public instruction ;
and injure, perhaps fatally, the noble system of common school education
that distinguishes our city and State.

fiesolved, That a copy of these proceedings, signed by the Chairman and
Secretary, in behalf of the Commissioners of School Money, be forwarded
to the Trustees of the Public School Society of New York, with permission
*o make such use of it, in sustaining the common school system unfettered

ROMAN CATHOLIC PROCEEDINGS. 187

by sectarian connections, as, in their opinion, may best promote that ob-
ject. SAMUEL GILFORD, JR.,

Chairman of Common School Money.
M. B. EDGAR, Secretary.

The usual annual examinations of the several schools com-
menced on the 17th of March following, and on the 24th the
examination of Public School No. 5, in Mott street, was held.
After the exercises, the trustees retired to the recitation-room,
and held a meeting for the consideration of important business'.
The Vice-Presideut announced that Rev. Felix Varela, of the
Roman Catholic Church, had sent a request to be furnished with
a set of the reading- books used in the public schools. A com-
mittee was subsequently appointed, whose action gave rise to
the expunging proceedings which became so prominent a topic
of discussion ; and forming, as it does, an event of a peculiar
character, the facts are presented in a succeeding chapter, em-
bodying the report of the committee, in which a full statement
of the case is detailed.

During the early part of the year 1840, the Roman Catholics
organized ah association to take such measures as might appear
to be politic or necessary for the furtherance of their claims.
The Freemarts. Journal, a weekly newspaper, was also pub-
lished, the first number appearing on the 4th of July, a promi-
nent object of which was to press the claims of the school ques-
tion \vith uninterrupted diligence upon the minds of the people.

The meetings of the Roman Catholics were held in the
school-house attached to St. Patrick's Cathedral. On the 20th
of July, a meeting was held, at which Rev. Dr. Power presided,
when addresses were made by the Chairman, Dr. Sweeney, and
Bishop Hughes. A committee was appointed to procure a more
commodious place. The next meeting was held in the basement
of St. James' Church, in James street, on the 27th of July,
when THOMAS O'CONNOR, Esq., was called to the chair, and the
bishop again addressed the assembly. At the close of his speech
he submitted the following preamble and resolutions :

"Whereas, The wisdom and liberality of the Legislature of thus State did
provide, at the public expense, for the education of the poor children of the
State, without injury or detriment to the civil and religious rights vested in
their parents or guardians by the laws of nature and of the land ; and,
whereas, the administration of that system, as now conducted, is such that

188 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the parents or guardians of Catholic children cannot allow them to frequent
such schools without doing violence to these rights of conscience which the
Constitution secures equal and inviolable to all citizens, viz. : They cannot
allow their children to be brought up under a system which proposes to
shut the door against Christianity, under the pretext of excluding sectarian-
ism, and which yet has not the merit of being true to its bad promise ;

And, whereas, Catholics who are the least wealthy, and most in need of
the education intended by the bounty of the State, are those cut off from
the benefit of funds to which they are obliged to contribute, and constrained
.either to contribute new funds for the purposes of education among them-
selves, or else to see their children brought up under a system of free-think-
ing and practical irreligion, or else to see them left in that ignorance which
they dread, and which it was the benevolent and wise intention of the
Legislature to remove ; therefore,

1. Resolced, That the operation of the common school system, as the
same is now administered, is a violation of our civil and religious rights.

2. Resolve;!, That we should not be worthy of our proud distinction as
Americans and American citizens, if we did not resist such invasion by
every lawful means in our power.

3. Resolved, That in seeking the redress of our grievances, we have con-
fidence in our rulers, more especially, as by granting that redress they will
but carry out the principles of the Constitution, which secures equal civil
and religious rights to all.

4. Resolved, That a committee of eight be appointed to prepare and
report an address to the Catholic community and the public at large, on the
injustice which is done to the Catholics, in their civil and religious right,
by the present operation of the common school system.

5. Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to prepare a report
on the public moneys which have been expended by the bounty of this
State for education, both in colleges and in common schools, to which Cath-
olics have contributed their proportion of taxes, like other citizens, but
from which they have never received any benefit.

James W. McKeon, Esq., seconded the resolutions, and the
following committees were appointed :

On the Address Right Rev. Bishop Hughes, James "W.
McKeon, Thomas O'Connor, Dr. Sweeney, James W. White,
James Kelley, Gregory Dillon, II. O'Connor, and John Mc-
Loughlin.

On the School Moneys C. F. Grirn, James W. McKeon, and
James W. White.

At the meeting held in the same place on the 10th of Au-
gust, the committee to prepare the address presented their report,
which was read by Bishop Hughes. After the reverend speak-
er had concluded, on motion of Mr. Shorthill, the address was

ROMAN CATHOLIC MEMORIAL. 189

adopted ; and, on motion of Mr. Gallagher, it was ordered that
five thousand copies be printed for distribution. The address
will be found in the chapter which treats of the " Expurgation
of the School Books."

The meeting was further addressed by Rev. CONSTANTINE D.
PISE, one of the Roman Catholic clergymen of the city, an
accomplished scholar and an earnest and eloquent preacher, and
JAMES "W. WHITE, Esq.

On the 24th of August and the 7th of September, adjourned
meetings were held, at which "Bishop Hughes continued his re-
marks upon the. exciting question of the time. On the 21st, the
committee appointed to prepare the memorial to the Common
Council submitted their report, which was read by Bishop
Hughes, the Chairman, after which a committee of four gentle-
men Messrs. Thomas O'Connor, Dr. Hugh Sweeney, James W,
McKeon, and J. K el ley was appointed, to proceed with the
same to the Board of Aldermen, then in session, and present it
to that body. Rev. Dr. Power rose to address the meeting, when
the committee retired from the hall, and presented the memorial
to the Board of Aldermen, as follows :

PETITION
To the Honorable the Board of Aldermen of the City of New York :

The petition of the Catholics of New York RESPECTFULLY REPRESENTS :

That your petitioners yield to no class in their performance of, and dis-
position to perform, all the duties of citizens. They bear, and are willing
to bear their portion of every common burden ; and feel themselves entitled
to a participation in every common benefit.

This participation, they regret to say, has been denied them for years
back, in reference to common school education in the city of New York,
except on conditions with which their conscience, and, as they believe, their
duty to Gocl, did not, and does not, leave them at liberty to comply.

The rights of conscience in this country are held by both the Constitu-
tion and universal consent, to be sacred and inviolable. No stronger evi-
dence of this need be adduced than the fact, that one class of citizens are
exempted from the duty or obligation of defending their country against
any invading foe, out of delicacy and deference to the rights of conscience
which forbids them to take up arms for any purpose.

Your petitioners only claim the benefit of this principle, in regard to the
public education of their children. They regard the public education,
which the State has provided as a common benefit, in which they are most
desirous, and feel that they are entitled, to participate ; and therefore they
pray your honorable body that they may be permitted to do so, -without
violating their conscience.

190 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

But your petitioners do not ask that this prayer be granted, without
assigning their reasons for preferring it.

In ordinary cases, men are not required to assign the motives of conscien-
tious scruples in matters of this kind. But your petitioners are aware that
a large, wealthy, and concentrated influence is directed against their claim
by the corporation called the Public School Society. And that this influ-
ence, acting on a public opinion already but too much predisposed to judge
unfavorably of the claims of your petitioners, requires to be met by facts
which justify them in thus appealing to your honorable body, and which
may, at the same time, convey a more correct impression to the public mind.
Your petitioners adopt this course the more willingly, because the justice
and impartiality which distinguish the decisions of public men in this coun-
try, inspire them with the confidence that your honorable body will main-
tain, in their regard, the principle of the rights of conscience, if it can be
done without violating the rights of others ; and on no other condition is
the claim solicited.

It is not deemed necessary to trouble your honorable body with a detail
of the circumstances by which the monopoly of the public education of
children in the city of New York, and of the funds provided for that pur-
pose, at the expense of the State, have passed into the hands of a private
corporation, styled, in its act of charter, " The Public School Society of the
City of New York." It is composed of men of different sects or denomina-
tions. But that denomination of Friends, which is bjelieved to have the
controlling influence, both by its numbers and otherwise, holds as a sectarian
principle, that any formal or official teaching of religion is, at best, unprofit-
able. And your petitioners have discovered that such of their children as
have attended the public schools are generally, and at an early age, imbued
with the same principle that they become untractable, disobedient, and
even contemptuous toward their parents unwilling to learn any thing of
religion as if they had become illuminated, and could receive all the
knowledge of religion necessary for them by instinct or inspiration. Your
petitioners do not pretend to assign the cause of this change in their chil-
dren ; they only attest the fact as resulting from their attendace at the pub-
lic schools of the Public School Society.

This Society, however, is composed of gentlemen of various sects, in-
cluding even one or two Catholics. But they profess to exclude all secta-
rianism from their schools. If they do not exclude sectarianism, they are
avowedly no more entitled to the school funds than your petitioners, or any
other denomination of professing Christians. If they do as they profess,
exclude sectarianism, then your petitioners contend that they exclude Chris-
tianity, and leave to the advantage of infidelity the tendencies which are
given to the minds of youth by the influence of^ this feature and pretension
of their system. If they could accomplish what they profess, other denomi-
nations would join your petitioners in remonstrating against their schools.
But they do not accomplish it. Your petitioners will show your horibrable
body that they do admit what Catholics call sectarianism (although others
may call it only religion), in a groat variety of ways.

ROMAN CATHOLIC MEMORIAL. 191

In their twenty-second report, as far back as the year 1827, they tell us,
p. 14, that they " are aware of the importance of early religious instruction,"
and that none but what is " exclusively general and spriptural in its char-
acter, should be introduced into the schools under their charge." Here,
then, is their own testimony that they did introduce and authorize " reli-
gious instruction " in their schools. And that they solved, with the utmost
composure, the difficult question on which the sects disagree by determining
what kind of " religious instruction " is " exclusively general and scriptural
in its character."

Neither could they impart this " early religious instruction " themselves.
They must have left it to their teachers ; and these, armed with official in-
fluence, could impress those " early religious instructions " on the susceptible
minds of the children, with the authority of dictators.

The Public School Society, in their report for the year 1832, p. 10, de-
scribe the effects of these " early religious instructions," without, perhaps,
intending to do so, but yet precisely as your petitioners have witnessed it in
such of their children as attended those schools. " The age at which chil-
dren are usually sent to school affords a much better opportunity to mould
their minds to peculiar and exclusive forms of faith, than any subsequent
period of life." In p. 11 of the same report, they protest against the in-
justice of supporting " religion in any shape " by public money as if the
early religious instruction, which they themselves authorized in their schools
five years before, was not " religion in some shape," and was not supported
by public taxation. They tell us again, in more guarded language, " The
trustees are deeply impressed with the importance of imbuing the youthful
mind with religious impressions ; and they have endeavored to attain this
object, as far as the nature of the institution will admit." Report of 1837,
p. 7.

In their thirty-third annual report, they tell us that " they would not be
understood as regarding religious impressions in early youth as unimport-
ant. On the contrary, they desire to do all which may with propriety be
done to give a right direction to the minds of the children entrusted to
their care. Their schools are uniformly opened with the reading of the
Scriptures, and the class-books are such as recognize and enforce the great
and generally acknowledged principles of Christianity." Page 7.

In their thirty-fourth annual report, for the year 1839, they pay a high
compliment to a deceased teacher for the " moral and religious influence
exerted by her over the three hundred girls daily attending her school," and
tell us that " it could not but have a lasting effect on many of their suscepti-
ble minds." Page 7. And yet in all these " early religious instructions
religious impressions, and religious influence," essentially anti-Catholic
your petitioners are to see nothing sectarian. But if, in giving the educa-
tion which the State requires, they were to bring the same influences to bear
on the "susceptible minds of their own children, in favor, and not 'against
their own religion, then this Society contends that it would be sectarian ! "

Your petitioners regret there is no means of ascertaining to what extent
the teachers in the schools of the Society carried out the views of their prin-

192 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

cipals, on the importance of conveying " early religious instructions " to the
susceptible minds of the children. But they believe it is in their power to
prove that, in some instances, the Scriptures have been explained, as well as
read, to the pupils.

Even the reading of the Scriptures in those schools, your petitioners can-
not regard otherwise than as sectarian ; because Protestants would certainly
consider as such the intention of the Catholic Scriptures, which are different
from theirs : and the Catholics have the same ground to objection when the
Protestant version is made use of. Your petitioners have to state further, as
grounds of their conscientious objections to those schools, that many of the
selections in their elementary reading-lessons contain matter prejudicial to
the Catholic name and character. The term " popery " is repeatedly found
in them. This term is known and employed as one of insult and contempt
toward the Catholic religion, and it passes into the 'minds of children with
the feelings of which it is the outward expression. Both the historical and
religious portions of the reading-lessons are selected from Protestant writers,
whose prejudices against the Catholic religion render them unworthy of
confidence in the mind of your petitioners, at least so far as their own chil-
den are concerned.

The Public School Society have heretofore denied that their books con-
tained any thing reasonably objectionable to Catholics. Proofs of the con-
trary could be multiplied, but it is unnecessary, as they have recently re-
tracted their denial, and discovered, after fifteen years' enjoyment of their
monopoly, that their books do contain objectionable passages. But they
allege that they have proffered repeatedly to make such corrections as the
Catholic clergy might require. Your petitioners conceive that such a pro-
posal could not be carried into effect by the Public School Society, without
giving just grounds for exceptions to other denominations. Neither can
they see with what consistency that Society can insist, as it has done, on the
perpetuation of its monopoly, when the trustees thus avow their incompe-
tency to present unexceptionable books, without the aid of the Catholic or
any other clergy. They allege, indeed, that with the best intentions they
have been unable to ascertain the passages which might be offensive to
Catholics. With their intentions, your, petitioners cannot enter into any
question. Nevertheless, they submit to your honorable body that this Soci-
ety is eminently incompetent for the superintendence of public education, if
they could not see that the following passage was unfit for the public
schools, and especially unfit to be placed in the hands of Catholic children.

They will quote the passage as one instance, taken from " Putnam's
Sequel," p. 296.

Huss, John, a zealous reformer from popery, who livsd in Bohemia
toward the close of the fourteenth, and the beginning of the fifteenth centu-
ries. He was bold and persevering ; but at length, trusting to the deceitful
Catholic*, he was by them brought to trial, condemned as heretic, and burnt
at the stake.

The Public School Society may be excused for not knowing the historical
inaccuracies of this passage ; but surely assistance of the Catholic clergy

ROMAN CATHOLIC MEMORIAL. 193

could not have been necessary to an understanding of the word " deceitful,"
as applied to all who profess the religion of your petitioners.

For these reasons, and others of the same kind, your petitioners cannot
in conscience, and conscientiously with their sense of duty to God and to
their offspring, intrust the Public School Society with the office of giving
" a right direction to the minds of their children." And yet this Society
claims that office, and claims for the discharge of it the common school
funds to which your petitioners, in common with other citizens, are con-
tributors. In so far as they are contributors, they are not only deprived of
any benefit in return, but their money is employed to the damage and detri-
ment of their religion, on the minds of their own children, and of the rising
generation of the community at large. The contest is between the guaranteed
rights, civil and religious, of the citizen on the one hand, and the preten-
sions of the Public School Society on the other ; and whilst it has been
silently going on for years, your petitioners would call the attention of your
honorable body to its consequences on the class for whom the benefits of
public education are most essential the children of the poor.

This class (your petitioners speak only so far as relates to their own
denomination), after a brief experience of the schools of the Public School
Society, naturally and deservedly withdraw all confidence from it. Hence
the establishment by your petitioners of schools for the education of the
poor.

The expense necessary for this was a second taxation, required not by
the laws of the land, but the no less imperious demands of their conscience.

They were reduced to the alternative of seeing their children growing up
in entire ignorance, or else taxing themselves anew for private schools, whilst
the funds provided for education, and contributed in part by themselves,
were given over to the Public School Society, and by them employed as has
been stated above.

Now your petitioners respectfully submit, that without this confidence,
no body of men can discharge the duties of education as intended by the
State and required by the people. The Public School Society are, and have
been at all times, conscious that they had not the confidence of the poor.
In their twenty-eighth report, they appeal to the ladies of New York to cre-
ate or procure it by the " persuasive eloquence of female kindness,." p. 5 ;
and from this they pass on to the next page, to the more efficient eloquence
of coercion under penalities and privations, to be visited on all persons,
" whether emigrant or otherwise," who, being in the circumstances of pov-
erty referred to, should not send their children to some " public or other
daily school."

In their twenty-seventh report, pp. 15 and 16, they plead for the doctrine,
and recommend it to public favor, by the circumstance that it will affect but
" few natives." But why should it be necessary at all, if they possessed
that confidence of the poor, without which they need never hope to succeed?
So well are they convinced of this, that no longer ago than last year, they
gave up all hope of inspiring it, and loudly called for coercion by " the
strong arm of the civil power" to supply its deficiency. Your petitioners will
13

194 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

close this part of their statement with the expression of their surprise, and
regret that gentlemen, who are themselves indebted much to the respect
which is properly cherished for the rights of conscience, should be so un-
mindful of the same rights in the case of your petitioners. Many of them
are by religious principle so pacific, that they would not take up arms in
the defence of the liberties of their country, though she should call them to
her aid : and yet they do not hesitate to invoke the " strong arm of the
civil power " for the purpose of abridging the private liberties of their fel-
low-citizens, who may feel equally conscientious.

Your petitioners have to deplore, as a consequence of this state of
things, the ignorance and vice to which hundreds, nay thousands of their
children are exposed. They have to regret,, also, that the education which
they can provide, under the disadvantages to which they have been subject-
ed, is not as efficient as it should be. But should your honorable body be
pleased to designate their schools as entitled to Realize a just proportion of
the public funds which belong to your petitioners in common with other
citizens, their schools could be improved for those who attend, others now
growing up in ignorance could be received, and the ends of the Legislature
could be accomplished a result which is manifestly hopeless under the
present system.

Your petitioners will now invite the attention of your honorable body to
the objections and misrepresentations that have been urged by the Public
School Society, to granting the claim of your petitioners. It is urged by
them that it would be appropriating money raised by general taxation to
the support of the Catholic religion. Your petitioners join issue with them,
and declare unhesitatingly, that if this objection can be established, the
claim shall be forthwith abandoned. It is objected that though we are
taxed as citizens, we apply for the benefits of education as " Catholics. 1 '
Your petitioners, to remove this difficulty, beg to be considered in their
application in the identical capacity in which they are taxed, viz., as citizens
of the commonwealth. It has been contended by the Public School Society
that the law disqualified schools which admit any profession of religion,
from receiving any encouragement from the school fund. Your petitioners
have two solutions for this pretended difficulty. 1. Your petitioners are
unable to discover any such disqualification in the law, which merely dele-
gates to your honorable body the authority and discretion of determining
what schools or societies shall be entitled to its bounty. 2. Your petitioners
are willing to fulfill the conditions of the law as far as religious teaching is
prescribed, during school hours. In fine, your petitioners, to remove all ob-
jections, are willing that the material organization of their schools, and the
disbursements of the funds allowed for them, should be conducted and
made by persons unconnected with the religion of your petitioners, even the
Public School Society, if it should please your honorable body to appoint
them for that purpose. The public may then be assured that the money
will not be applied to the support of the Catholic religion.

It is deemed necessary by your petitioners, to save the Public School
Society the necessity of future misconception, thus to state the things which

BOARD OF ALDERMEN. 195

are not petitioned for. The members of that Society who have shown them-
selves so impressed with the importance of conveying their notions of " early
religious instruction " to the " susceptible minds " of Catholic children, can
have no objection that the parents of the children, and teachers in whom
the parents have confidence, should do the same, provided no law is violated
thereby, and no disposition evinced to bring the children of other denomina-
tions within its influence.

Your petitioners, therefore, pray that your honorable body will be pleased
to designate as among the schools entitled to participate in the common
school fund, upon complying with the requirements of the law and the
ordinances of the Corporation of the city, or for such other relief as to your
honorable body, shall seem meet St. Patrick's school, St. Peter's school,
St. Mary's school, St. Joseph's school, St. James 1 school, St, Nicholas' school,
Transfiguration Church school, and St. John's school.

And your petitioners further request, in- the event of your honorable
body's determining to hear your petitioners on the subject of their petition
that such time may be appointed as may be most agreeable to your honor
able body ; and that a full session of your honorable board be convened for
that purpose.

And your petitioners, &c.

THOMAS O'CONNOR, Chairman.

GREGORY DILLON, \

ANDREW CARRIGAN, > Vice- Chairmen,

PETER DUFFY, )

Of a general meeting of the Catholics of the city of New York, convened in the

school-room of St. James 1 Church, 21st of September, 1840.
B. O'CONNOR, J. KELLY, J. MCLAUGHLIN, Secretaries.

When the petition was presented to the board, Alderman
Chamberlain offered the following resolution :

Resolved, That it be referred to a special committee to inquire into the
expediency of granting the prayer of the petitioners, to be heard before the
board, and that they report to this board with all convenient dispatch, and
that the petition be printed.

Alderman Graham rose, and moved a substitute for the reso-
lution of Alderman Chamberlain, as follows :

Resolved, That the petitioners be heard before the full board on the sub-
ject of the petition, and that the next regular meeting of the board be
assigned for that purpose.

A division being called for by Alderman Graham, the ques-
tion was decided in the negative, as follows :
Ayes Aldermen Balis and Graham 2.

196 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Nays The President (Elijah F. Purdy), Aldermen Kich,
Chamberlain, Campbell, Hatfield, Jarvis, Smith, Nichols, Coop-
er, and Nash 10.

The question was then put, on the motion of Alderman
Chamberlain, and it was unanimously adopted. The President
then appointed Messrs. Chamberlain, Graham, and Jarvis, as
the committee.

On the 5th and 19th of October, adjourned, meetings of the
Catholics were held, at which Bishop Hughes, and others, made
vigorous appeals on behalf of their movement.

Remonstrances were prepared on the part of the Public
School Society and the Methodist Episcopal Church, which are
as follows :

To ike Honorable the Board of Aldermen of the City of Nffw York :

The memorial and remonstrance of the Trustees of the Public School
Society of New York, RESPECTFULLY REPRESENTS :

That your memorialists learn that a petition from the Roman Catholics
of this city is no.w before your honorable body, in which they again ask for
a portion of the school money in aid of the schools under their charge.
After the late unanimous decision of one branch of the municipal govern-
ment, in which the other was supposed tacitly to unite, adverse to several
petitions of the same kind from religious societies, it is unexpected to your
remonstrants to be so soon placed in a position which, in their opinion, ren-
ders it necessary to oppose the application of a large and influential body
of their fellow-citizens. But until the confidence which has been so long
reposed in them by the city government, and the public generally, is with-
drawn, they feel it to be an imperious though an unpleasant duty to remon-
strate against what they deem a dangerous application of funds raised for
the promotion of common and general education.

The subject has, however, been so fully elucidated and ably argued, in
documents now among the public records, that your remonstrants cannot
hope to shed any additional light upon it. They therefore beg leave to refer
your honorable body to Document No. 80 of the late Board of Assistant
Aldermen, as containing the reasons on which your remonstrants would rely,
in opposing the applications of religious societies for a portion of the school
fund. It is believed that no decision of the city government ever met with
a more general and cordial response in the public mind. And as the Roman
Catholics very recently issued an address to the people of this city and
State, urging at large their reasons for a separate appropriation of school
money, to which your remonstrants have replied, they now present copies
of said documents, which they respectfully submit to your honorable body,
us containing matter relevant to the question under consideration.

The petition of the Roman Catholics now pending presents, nevertheless,
borne points which your remonstrants feel called upon to notice.

REMONSTRANCE OF THE SOCIETY. 197

By a misapprehension of the law in relation to persons who are conscien-
tiously opposed to bearing arms, which is applicable to persons of every
religious persuasion, they attempt to adduce an argument in favor of the
prayer of their petition, and say, that they only claim the benefit of the
same principle in regard to the education of their children. Now the facts
are, that the law imposes a fine, or tax, as an equivalent for personal military
service, and, in the event of there being no property on which to levy, sub-
jects such persons to imprisonment, and numbers are every year actually
confined in the jails of this State.

With the religious opinions of the denomination of Christians referred
to, your remonstrants have nothing to do. In opposing the claims of the
Roman Catholic, and several other churches, to the school money, they have
confined their remarks to the broad general grounds alike applicable to all ;
but the petitioners have seen fit to single out a religious society by name,
and intimate, or indirectly assert, not only that their peculiar religious views
lead to insubordination and contempt of parental authority, but that the
trustees of the public schools who are of this denomination, by reason of
their numbers, or the " controlling influence " they exert, have introduced
the " same principle " into the public schools, and that their effects are mani-
fested in the conduct of the Catholic children who have attended them.
Your remonstrants feel bound, therefore, in reply, to state that, of the one
hundred citizens who compose the Board of Trustees, there are only twelve
of the denomination thus traduced ; and of these, six or seven accepted the
situation by solicitation of the board, for the purpose of superintending the
management of the colored schools, to which object they have almost exclu-
sively confined themselves. Of the motive that induced this extraordinary
portion of the petition, your remonstrants will not trust themselves to
speak ; of so much of it as conveys an idea that the trustees who are of this
religious persuasion introduce, or attempt to introduce, into the public
schools their own peculiar opinions, they can only say, that no one of the
numerous and serious charges brought against your remonstrants by the
petitioners is more entirely destitute of foundation in fact. If a disposition
existed in any quarter to give a sectarian bias to the minds of the children,
it will readily be seen that the most successful method would be through
the selection of teachers.

In one of the documents now submitted to your honorable body, it is
stated that, in appointing teachers, no regard is had by the trustees to the
religious profession of the candidates, and that six or seven of the present
number are Roman Catholics. From an inquiry now made, it is found that
only two of the teachers belong to the " Society of Friends."

It will thus be seen that the charge made in the petition of the Roman
Catholics, that such of their children as have attended the public schools
are generally, and at an early age, imbued with a principle which they
impute to a portion of the trustees, falls to the ground, and is proved to be
as unfounded as it is illiberal and ungenerous.

It is with regret that your remonstrants find themselves under the pain-
ful necessity of saying, that the petition of the Catholics contains garbled

198 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

extracts and detached portions of some parts of their annual reports in rela-
tion to religious instruction, and so arranged and commented upon as to
convey a meaning directly opposite to the one intended and clearly ex-
pressed in the original documents.

The same means are resorted to in quoting the language of the trustees,
when urging the importance of using measures for inducing the poor to
have their children educated. On different occasions, your remonstrants
have suggested to the Common Council the expediency of requiring, by
legal enactment, the attendance at some " public or other daily school " of the
numerous " vagrant children who roam about our streets and wharves, beg-
ging and pilfering;" and this is tortured, in the Catholic petition, into a
desire of " abridging the private liberties of their fellow-citizens," and an
acknowledgment on the part of the trustees " that they had not the confi-
dence of the poor."

The records of the schools will demonstrate that the industrious and
respectable portions of the laboring classes repose entire confidence in the
public school system and its managers.

The subject of objectionable matter in the books used in the public .
schools is so fully discussed in the papers now submitted to your honorable,
body, that little more would seem to be called for under this head. Find-
ing their strenuous and long continued efforts to induce the Catholic clergy
to unite in an expurgation of the books unavailing, the trustees commenced
the work without them, and it is now nearly completed. If any thing
remains to which the petitioners can take exception, no censure can by pos-
sibility attach to your remonstrants; and the trustees assert with confidence,
that, if any has escaped them, there is now less matter objectionable to the
Roman Catholics to be found in the books used in the public schools than
in those of any other seminary of learning, either public or private, within
this State.

In conclusion, your remonstrants would remark that they have not
thought it expedient, on this occasion, to enter into a detailed defence of
their conduct as regards all of the charges preferred by the Roman Catho-
lics. Those charges are before your honorable body, and the trustees will
cheerfully submit to any inquiry that you may see fit to institute in relation
to them ; and, even if it can be shown that your remonstrants are as " emi-
nently incompetent to the superintendence of public education " as the peti-
tion of the Roman Catholics intimates, it would not, they respectfully sug-
gest, furnish any apology for breaking down one of the most important
bulwarks of the civil and religious liberties of the American people.

Should your honorable body decide to hear the petitioners before the
collected board, your remonstrants respectfully ask to be heard on the same
occasion, in reply:

ROBERT C. CORNELL, President.
A. P. HA.LSEY, Secretary.

NEW YOKK, October 3d, 1840.

To the Honorable the Common Council of the City of New York :

The undersigned committee, appointed by the pastors of the Methodist

REMONSTRANCE OF THE METHODISTS. 199

Episcopal Church in this city, on the part of said pastors and churches, do

MOST RESPECTFULLY REPRESENT :

That they have heard with surprise and alarm that the Roman Catholics
have renewed their application to the Common Council for an appropriation
from the common school fund, for the support of the schools under their
own direction, in which they teach, and propose still to teach, their own
sectarian dogmas, not only to their own children, but to such Protestant
children as they may find means to get into these schools.

Your memorialists had hoped that the clear, cogent, and unanswerable
arguments by which the former application for this purpose was resisted,
would have saved the Common Council from further importunity.

It was clearly shown, that the Council could not legally make any secta-
rian appropriation of the public funds ; and it was as clearly shown that it
would be utterly destructive of the whole scheme of public school instruction
to do so, even if it could be legally done. But it; seems that neither the Con-
stitution of the State nor the public welfare are to be regarded, when they
stand in the way of Roman Catholic sectarianism and exclusiveness.

It must be manifest to the Common Council, that, if the Roman Catholic
claims are granted, all the- other Christian denominations will urge their
claims for a similar appropriation, and that the money raised for education
by a general tax will be solely applied to the purposes of proselytism,
through the medium of sectarian schools. But if this were done, would it
be the price of peace ? or would it not throw the apple of discord into the
whole Christian community, should we agree in the division of the spoils ?
Would each sect be satisfied with the portion allotted to it ? We venture
to say that the sturdy claimants who now beset the Council would not be
satisfied with much less than the lion's share ; and we are sure that there are
other Protestant denominations beside ourselves who would not patiently
submit to the exaction. But, \vhen all the Christian sects shall be satisfied
with their individual share of the public fund, what is to become of those
children whose parents belong to none of these sects, and who cannot con-
scientiously allow them to be educated in the peculiar dogmas of any one
of them ? The different committees who, on a former occasion, approached
your honorable body, have shown that, to provide schools for these only,
would require little less than is now expended ; and it requires little arith-
metic to show that, when the religious sects have taken all, nothing will
remain for those who have not yet been able to decide which of the Chris-
tian denominations to prefer. It must be plain to every impartial observer,
that the applicants are opposed to the whole system of public school in-
struction ; and it will be found that the uncharitable exclusiveness of their
creed must ever be opposed to all public instruction which is not under the
direction of their own priesthood. They may be conscientious in all this ;
bnt, though it be no new claim on their part, we cannot yet allow them to
guide and control the consciences of all the rest of the community. We are
sorry that the reading of the Bible in the public schools, without note or
commentary, is- offensive to them ; but we cannot allow the Holy Scriptures
to be accompanied with their notes and commentaries, and to be put into the

200 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIKTT.

hands of the children who may hereafter be the rulers and legislators of our
beloved country ; because, among other bad things taught in these commen-
taries, is to be found the lawfulness of murdering heretics, and the unquali-
fied submission, in all matters of conscience, to the Roman Catholic Church.

But if the principle on which this application is based should be admit-
ted, it must be carried far beyond the present purpose.

If all are to be released from taxation when they cannot conscientiously
derive any benefit from the disbursement of the money collected, what will
be done for the Society of Friends, and other sects who are opposed to war
under all circumstances ? Many of these, besides the tax paid on all foreign
goods thus consumed, pay direct duties at the Custom House, which go to
the payment of the army and to purchase the munitions of war. And even
when the Government finds it necessary to lay direct war taxes, these con-
scientious sects are compelled to pay their proportion, on the ground that
the public defence requires it. So, it is believed, the public interest requires
the education of the whole rising generation ; because it would be unsafe to
commit the public liberty, and the perpetuation of our republican institu-
tions, to those whose ignorance of their nature and value would render them
careless of their preservation, or the easy dupes of artful innovators ; and
hence every citizen is required to contribute in proportion to his means to
the public purpose of universal education.

The Roman Catholics complain that books have been introduced into
the public schools which are injurious to them as a body. It is allowed,
however, that the passages in these books to which such reference is made
are chiefly, if not entirely, historical ; and we put it to the candor of the
Common Council to say, whether any history of Europe for the last ten cen-
turies could be written which could either omit to mention the Roman
Catholic Church, or mention it without recording historical facts unfavor-
able to that Church ? We assert, that if all the historical facts in which the
Church of Rome has taken a prominent part could be taken from writers
of her own communion only, the incidents might' be made more objection-
able to the complainants than any book to which they now object.

History itself, then, must be falsified for their accommodation ; and yet
they complain that the system of education adopted in the public schools
does not teach the sinfulness of lying ! They complain that no religion is
taught in these schools, and declare that any, even the worst form of Chris-
tianity, would be better than none : and yet they object to the reading of
the Holy Scriptures, which are the only foundation of all true religion. Is
it not plain, then, that they will not be satisfied with any thing short of the
total abandonment of public school instruction, or the appropriation of such
portion of the public fund as they may claim to their own sectarian pur-
poses.

But this is not all. They have been most complaisantly offered the cen-
sorship of the books to be used in the public schools. The committee to
whom has been confided the management of these schools in this city offered
to allow the Roman Catholic bishop to expurgate from these books any
thing offensive to him.

KMON6TRANCE OF THE METHODISTS. 201

But the offer was not accepted ; perhaps for the same reason that he
declined to decide on the admissibility of a book of extracts from the Bible,
which had been sanctioned by certain bishops in Ireland. An appeal, it
seems, had gone to the pope on the subject, and nothing could be said or
done in the matter until His Holiness had decided. The Common Council
of New York, will therefore find that, when they shall have conceded to the
Roman Catholics of this city the selection of books for the use of the pub-
lic schools, that these books must undergo the censorship of a foreign po-
tentate. We hope the time is far distant when the citizens of this country
will allow any foreign power to dictate to them in matters relating to either
general or municipal law.

We cannot conclude this memorial without noticing one other ground on
which the Roman Catholics, in their late appeal to their fellow-citizen?,
urged their sectarian claims, and excused their conscientious objections to
the public schools. Their creed is dear to them, it seems, because some of
their ancestors have been martyrs to their faith. This was an unfortunate
allusion. Did not the Roman Catholics know that they addressed many of
their fellow-citizens who could not recur to the memories of their own an-
cestors without being reminded of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, the fires of Smithfield, or the cru-
sade against the Waldetises ? We would willingly cover these scenes with
the mantle of charity, and hope that our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens
will, in future, avoid whatever has a tendency to revive the painful remem-
brance.

Your memorialists had hoped that the intolerance and exclusiveness
which had characterized the Roman Catholic Church in Europe had been
greatly softened under the benign influences of our civil institutions. The
pertinacity with which their sectarian interests are now urged has dissi-
pated the illusion. We were content with their having excluded us, &e
cathedra, from all claka to heaven, for we were sure they did not possess the
keys, notwithstanding their confident pretension ; nor did we complain that
they would not allow us any participation in the benefits of purgatory, for
it is a place they have made for themselves, and of which they may claim
the exclusive property ; but we do protest against any appropriation of the
public school fund for their exclusive benefit, or for any other purposes
whatever.

Assured that the Common Council will do what it is right to do in the
premises, we are, gentlemen, with great respect,

Your most obedient servants,

N. BANGS,
THOMAS E. BOND,
GEORGE PECK.

On the 19th of October, the remonstrance of the Public
School Society, and of the Methodists, were presented to the
Board of Aldermen, and laid on the table until the report of the

202 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY. ,

committee to whom the petition of the Catholics had been re-
ferred should be submitted to the board. When the reports of
committees came up in the regular order of business, the special
committee made a brief report, in which they recommended the
folio wins: resolution :

Resolved, That the Board of Aldermen cheerfully grant the prayer of our
Catholic fellow-citizens, to be allowed the privilege of being heard in sup-
port of their petition to have St. Patrick's school, St. Peter's school, St.
Mary's school, St. Joseph's school, St. James' school, St. Nicholas' school,
Transfiguration Church school, and St. John's school, designated as among
the schools entitled to participate in the common school fund ; and that the
President of the Board of Aldermen be requested to call a special meeting
of the board on Friday evening next, at 4 o'clock p. M., and that he be
requested to invite the members of the Board of Assistant Aldermen to hear
the discussion, and that the privilege of discussing the same subject, in the
same manner, be also extended to all other parties interested in it, either by
counsel or otherwise. ,

The resolution was adopted, and the memorials and remon-
strances were taken from the table, and referred to the com-
mittee.

The meeting was not held until Thursday, the 29th, when
the Common Council assembled for the purpose of hearing the
arguments by the petitioners and remonstrants, and a protracted
debate ensued, the report of which was made for the Freeman's
Journal. After the organization of the meeting. and the read-
ing of the preceding papers, the Right Rev. Bishop HUGHES
rose to address the board in behalf of the Catholics, and spoke
as follows :

Gentlemen of the Board of Aldermen :

Unaccustomed as I am to address a body of gentlemen such as I see here
before me, I may not always be correct in the manner of my address ; I
hope, therefore, that any mistakes of mine may be imputed by this honor-
able board to my inexperience. I would also, on the threshold of the sub-
ject, observe, that in no part of the discussion on this question, so far as it
has gone, am I conscious of having imputed to any gentleman who is
opposed to the claim in which I have so deep an interest, any motive or
design of a sinister character. I am sorry, therefore, that the Public School
Society should have been pleased to refer to the language of our document
as though imputation had thereby been cast upon their motives. I am sure,
if they again review our documents, they will not find one solitary instance
of any imputation dishonorable to them personally as gentlemen. We speak
of their system apart from themselves ; and we speak of it with that free-

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 203

doni which it is the right of American citizens to speak of the public
actions and public proceedings of public men ; but again will I repeat, that
in no instance to my knowledge has there been imputed to those gentlemen
one solitary motive, one single purpose, unworthy of their high standing
and their respectable character. They have alleged, in some of their docu-
ments, that we charge them with teaching infidelity ; but we have not done
so. We charge it as the result of their system not that they are actively
engaged in teaching infidelity; and not only do we not say this, but we
interpose the declaration, that we do not believe such to be their intention,
but that the system has gone beyond their intention. Yet, after this, they
ascribe to themselves these imputations, and they cap their salvo by saying,
that even the authors of the address shrink from a picture of their own
coloring a picture which they not only charge that we have drawn of
them, but also of all other classes and denominations of our fellow-citizens.
Now, I venture to repeat, that in no instance have we imputed to them
motives .which can reflect on them as honorable men. I make these obser-
vations in the commencement, simply to show how much has been written
of the petitioners on assumptions which have no foundation on any thing
that has been written or said by us. I know well the Public School Society
is an institution highly popular in the city of New York ; but I should be
sorry to suppose that those gentlemen would permit themselves to interpose
that popularity between them and the JUSTICE which we contend for when
we seek that to which we believe we have a legal right. At the same time
it is proper .for me, at the commencement, to clear away another objection
which an attempt has been made, in both the remonstrances that have been
read, to oppose to the exceedingly simple principle for which we contend.
The attempt has been made (and you will perceive the whple document,
which issued as a report from the Board of Assistant Aldermen, as well as
the remonstrances of the Public School Society and the Methodist Episco-
pal Church, is based on the same false assumption) to assume false premises
in this matter ; which are, that we want this money for the promotion of
the ecclesiastical interests of our Church. Now, if these societies wish to
enter their remonstrances against our petition, they should first read the lan-
guage in which we have urged our claim ; and if they had, they would
have saved themselves the trouble, in my opinion, of reasoning on argu-
ments which are but figments of their own creation, and no proposition of
ours. Have not we distinctly stated not only what, we want, but, to guard
them against accusing us of what we do not want, have we not said that we
do not want the public money to promote ecclesiastical interests ? for, to this
money, for such a purpose, we have no right. And, also r have we not fur-
ther stated, that, if it can be shown that we want the money for this pur-
pose, that we will abandon our claim that, if it can be shown that we
want it for sectarian interests, we will relinquish it altogether ? We have
said, in the first place :

Your petitioners will now invite the attention of your honorable body to
the objections and misrepresentations that have been urged by the Public
School Society to granting the claim of your petitioners. It is urged by

204: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

them that it would be appropriating money raised by general taxation to
the support of the Catholic religion. Your petitioners join issue with them,
and declare unhesitatingly that, if this objection can be established, the
claim shall be forthwith abandoned. It is objected that, though we are
taxed as citizens, we apply for the benefits of education as " Catholics."
Your petitioners, to remove this difficulty, beg to be considered in their
application in the identical capacity in which they are taxed viz., us citi-
zens of the commonwealth. It has been contended by the Public School
Society, that the law disqualifies schools which admit any profession of
religion from receiving any encouragements from the school fund. Your
petitioners have two solutions for this pretended difficulty. First, your
petitioners are unable to discover any such disqualification in law, which
merely delegates to your honorable body the authority and discretion of
determining what schools or societies shall be entitled to its bounty. Sec-
ondly, your petitioners are willing to fulfil the conditions of the law so far
as religious teaching is proscribed during school hours. In fine, your peti-
tioners, to remove all objections, are willing that the material organization
of their schools, and the disbursements of the funds allowed for them, shall
be conducted and made by persons unconnected with the religion of your
petitioners, even the Public School Society, if it should please your honor-
able body to appoint them for that purpose. The public may then be
assured that the money will not be applied to the support of the Catholic
religion.

It is deemed necessary by your petitioners to save the Public School
Society the necessity of future misconception thus to state the things which
are not petitioned for. .

Yet, notwithstanding this clear and simple language, you perceive both
the remonstrances of the School Society and the Episcopal Methodists go
on this false issue, that we want this money for sectarian and illegal pur-
poses ! Our language could not be plainer than it was on this point, and
yet there has been uncharitableness enough in these societies to assert the
contrary. I have deemed it necessary to make this explanation at the com-
mencement, to impress your minds, gentlemen, with what it is we seek and
what it is we seek not, because I know a deal may be done toward a proper
elucidation of this subject by preserving its simplicity. The remonstrants
warn you, gentlemen, against giving money for sectarian purposes. We join
them in that admonition. We contend that we look in honesty and sim-
plicity alone for the benefits of education ; and, as members of the common-
wealth, and as Catholics, we seek but that which we believe to be just, and
legal, and right.

I shall now, gentlemen, review very briefly both the documents, because
they submit to your honorable body the grounds on which that claim, which
we believe to be just, is opposed. After the introduction of that from the
Public School Society, we find, in the second paragraph, the following pas-
sages .

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 205

Yes, it may well be so believed, for the reason that that whole document
went on a false issue, and therefore it was thus believed. But if I prove
as I shall that the premises had no foundation in reality, then the argu-
ments founded thereon must fall to the ground, for they were but castles in
the air. It proceeds :

As the Roman Catholics very recently issued an address to the people of
this city and State, urging at large their reasons for a separate appropriation
of school money, to which your remonstrants have replied, they now present
copies of said documents, which they respectfully submit to your honorable
body, as containing matter relevant to the question under consideration.

The petition of the Roman Catholics now pending presents, nevertheless,
some points which your remonstrants feel called upon to notice.

By a misapprehension of the law in relation to persons who are conscien-
tiously opposed to bearing arms, which is applicable to persons of every
religious persuasion, they attempt to adduce an argument in favor of the
prayer of their petition, and say that they only claim the benefit of the
same principle in regard to the education of their children. Now, the facts
are, that the law imposes a fine, or tax, as an equivalent for personal mili-
tary services, and, in the event of there being no property on which to levy,
subjects such persons to imprisonment, and numbers are every year actually
confined in the jails of this State.

Now I conceive the illustration there referred to was a strong one. The
parents and guardians of tender offspring have a right connected with their
nature by God himself in His wise providence, and they should be shown a
strong reason for transferring it to others. And I adduced it as an illustra-
tion, and as a strong one why ? Because the defence of the country is a
thing connected with self-existence and preservation ; and yet, so tender is
the genius of this happy country of the rights of conscience, it dispensed
with all those who had religious scruples from a compliance with the law,
and changed it into a small fine, whereby the right was shown, and also the
disposition, to waive it.

Now, I am exceedingly surprised that those gentlemen should go so far
from the text to draw reproach upon themselves. "We said nothing to
authorize this language. "We simply stated the fact ; we mentioned the cir-
cumstance of the controlling influence of those holding peculiar sectarian
views ; but we did not draw the conclusion whether the insubordination of
the children of our poor people was the result of the principles taught in
the schools, or of a want of domestic influence. And yet these gentlemen
have gone on to draw upon themselves an imputation of which we respect-
fully disclaim the authorship. They proceed :

206 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Your remonstrants feel bound, therefore, in reply, to state that of the
one hundred citizens who compose the Board of Trustees, there are only
twelve of the denomination thus traduced,

Now, to this charge of traducing. we beg to demur.

and of these, six or seven accepted the situation by solicitation of the

ooard, for the purpose of superintending the management of the colored
schools, to which object they have almost exclusively confined themselves.

Now I should be one of the last to detract from the merits of this de-
nomination. Some of them I have known personally, and others by their
nistory, and my opinion has always been of them that they are among the
foremost in every benevolent act and social virtue, and to lend their arm to
strengthen the weak and the oppressed ; and therefore it is no reproach to
them that they take the lead in this work of benevolence, for which I give
them credit.

They go on to say :

Of the motive that induced this extraordinary portion of the petition,
your remonstrants will not trust themselves to speak,

It might be recollected, gentlemen, if there were a leaning that way, it
was after the publication of the " Reply " to our " Address," which, though
it has the name, is no reply to our arguments. It is not an answer ; but in
it they take the occasion to sneer at us, as I shall soon have occasion to
show ; yet I may here observe that it would have been better if they had
addressed themselves to the principles of eternal justice on which we rest.

Of so much of it (they add) as conveys an idea, that the trustees who
are of this religious persuasion, introduce, or attempt to introduce into the
public schools, their own peculiar opinions

We never charged that they did.

they can only say that no one of the numerous and serious charges

brought against your remonstrants by the petitioners, is more entirely desti-
tute of foundation in fact. If a disposition existed in any quarter to give a
sectarian bias to the minds of the children, it will readily be seen that the
most successful method would be through the selection of teachers.

Why there was no necessity for this vindication at all.

In one of the documents now submitted to your honorable body, it is
stated, that in appointing teachers, no regard is had by the trustees to the
religious profession of the candidates, and that six or seven of the present
number are Roman Catholics.

I have seen this statement figure in almost every document of that Soci-
ety, and yet I have not been able to find " six or seven of the present num-
ber who are Roman Catholics ; " and I doubt if they can be found, except
they are such Roman Catholics as we see our children become after they
have been in these public schools that is, Catholics who have no feelings in
common with their Church Catholics who are ashamed of the name, be-
cause in the school-books and from the teachers they hear of its professors
only as " papists," and of the religion itself only as " popery." It is such as

SPEECH OF BISHOP. HUGHES. 207

these, I fear, that pass as Catholics. I only know of one who is worthy of
the name.

Prom an inquiry now made it is found that only two of the teachers be-
long to the " Society of Friends."

And I don't suppose that better teachers could be obtained anywhere,
when confined within the limits prescribed ; except they have the privilege
to introduce religious instruction. And without that it matters but little
whether they are of the Society of Friends, or not. They continue :

It is with regret that your remonstrants find themselves under the painful
necessity of saying that the petition of the Catholics contains garbled
extracts and detached portions of some parts of their annual reports in rela-
tion to religious instruction, and so arranged and commented upon, as to
convey a meaning directly opposite to the one intended and clearly ex-
pressed in the original documents.

Now I will allow the reading of it, and if there are any garbled extracts
there, I will be the first to correct it. But I am surprised when we quote
the words of their documents, that they should urge this charge. Let the
documents be read. I have no dread on this subject.

The same means are resorted to in quoting the language of th6 trustees
when urging the importance of using measures for inducing the poor to
have their children educated. On different occasions your remonstrants
have suggested to the Common Council, the expediency of requiring, by
legal enactment, the attendance at some " public or other daily school," of
the numerous a vagrant children who roam about our streets and wharves,
begging and pilfering," and this is tortured in the Catholic petition into a
desire of " abridging the private liberties of their fellow-citizens," and an
acknowledgment, on the part of the trustees, " that they had not the confi-
dence of the poor."

Yet I should think, gentlemen, such a reluctance to attend their schools
as to make it necessary to apply for a legal enactment to procure first the
money, and then to compel an attendance, would show that they did want
that confidence. I know they have not the confidence of our body. Yes,
they have obtained two enactments from the Common Council, depriving
the parents, in time of need even when cold and starvation have set in
upon them of public relief, unless the children were sent to these or some
other schools. And I have seen them urging ladies in their public docu-
ments, to obtain their confidence by soothing words ; and I have seen them
urging employers to make it the condition of employment. Yet, after all
this, they pretend that they have had the confidence of the poor. I do not
say that they have not merited it according to their views ; but I do not
think they should expect all mankind to submit to their views of the mat-
ter, to the sacrifice of their own.

They say :

The records of the schools will demonstrate that the industrious and
respectable portions of the laboring classes repose entire confidence in the
public school system and its managers.

Then that portion in behalf of whom I stand here is not to be classed
with " the industrious and respectable ! "

208 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

They then proceed to another point :

The subject of objectionable matter in the books used in the public
schools, is so fully discussed in the papers now submitted to your honorable
body, that little more would seem to be called for under this head. Find-
ing their strenuous and long-continued efforts to induce the Catholic clergy
to unite in an expurgation of the books unavailing, the trustees commenced
the work without them, and it is now nearly completed. If any thing re-
mains, to which the petitioners can take exception, no censure can, by possi-
bility, attach to your remonstrants ; and the trustees assert with confidence,
that if any has escaped them, there is now less matter objectionable to the
Roman Catholics, to be found in the books used in the public schools, than
in those of any other seminary of learning, either public or private, within
this State.

Now they could not adopt a worse test, for I defy you to find a reading-
book in either public or private seminary, that in respect to Catholics is not
full of ignorance. Not a book. For if it were clear of this, it would not
be popular ; and if they refer to this then, they refer to a standard which
we repudiate. But it must be remembered those people can send their chil-
dren to those schools or keep them at home. They are not TAXED for their
support. But here we are. It is the public money which is here used to
preserve the black blots which have been attempted to be fixed on the Cath-
olic name. They say again (and it is an idea that will go exceedingly well
with the public at large, for it will show how amiable and conciliating are
these gentlemen) that they have submitted the books to us as though we
have nothing to do but to mark out a passage, and it will disappear. But
are we to take the odium of erasing passages which they hold to be true ?
Have they the right to make such an offer ? And if we spend the necessary
time in reviewing the books to discover passages to be expurgated, have
they given us a pledge that they will do itj or that they will not even then
keep them in ? Have they given us a pledge that they will do it as far as
their denomination is concerned ? And, then, after all the loss of time
which it would require to review these books, they can either remove the
objectionable passages, or preserve them, as they see fit. An individual can-
not answer for a whole body. They may make a fine offer which may be
calculated to impose on the public, but if we put the question if they are
able and if they are willing, I should like to know whether they can, and
will, pass a law to show us that they are sincere, and that the object can be
carried out ? That would alter the case ; for we may correct one passage
to-day, and another next week ; and then another body may come into
power, and we may have to petition again and again. Could they, then, do
it if they would ? And should they, -if they could ?

They add :

In conclusion, your remonstrants would remark, that they have not
thought it expedient, on this occasion, to enter into a detailed defence of
their conduct as regards all of the charges preferred by the Roman Catho-
lics. Those charges are before your honorable body, and the trustees will
cheerfully submit to any inquiry that you may see fit to institute in relation
to them ; and even if it can be shown that your remonstrants are as " emi-
nently incompetent to the superintendence of public education " as the peti-
tion of the Roman Catholics intimates, it would not, they respectfully sug-

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 209

gest, furnish any apology for breaking down one of the most important bul-
warks of the civil and religious liberties of the American people.

This much, then, as regards this document, which, it will be perceived,
goes on the false assumption that we want this money for a sectarian pur-
pose, because it was so referred to in the report of the committee of the
Board of Assistant Aldermen, which denied our claim ; for, when I come to
that, it will be found that every proposition in it goes on the assumption
that we wish this money for religious purposes. If we did, it would be just
to deny it to us. But I will now take up another document, and I regret
that I cannot treat it with the respect I would otherwise wish to do. The
document from the' Public School Society, however it might have been led
aside, and however feeble in its reasoning, contained nothing, I trust and
believe, which was intended to be disrespectful to us. It was couched in
language at which I cannot take offence. Though it was weak in its prin-
ciples, its reasoning was decent. I cannot say as much for this, which is
from

. The undersigned committee, appointed by the pastors of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in this city.

They commence by observing,

That they have heard with surprise and alarm

They should have seen our petition, instead of taking " hearsay " for
their authority.

that the Roman Catholics have renewed their application to the Com-
mon Council for an appropriation from the common school fund, for the
support of the schools under their own direction, in which they teach, and
propose still to teach, their own sectarian dogmas.

Where did they find that? Where did they find that statement? I
should like to know, from the gentlemen who signed this remonstrance,
where they have their authority for such an assertion ? We disclaim it in
the petition against which they remonstrate. It shows, then, how much
trust can be placed in " hearsay," when they should and might have exam-
ined the petition against which they remonstrate, in which they can find no
such thing.

In which they teach, and propose still to teach, their own sectarian dog-
mas : not only to their own children, but to such Protestant children as
they may find means to get into these schools.

I ask these gentlemen again, what authority they have for such an asser-
tion ? I should like to see the argument which gives them their authority
to use language and to make a statement so palpably .false as this is:

We shall see whether the arguments were so clear, cogent, and unanswer-
able, by and by.
U

210 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

It was clearly shown that the Council could not legally make any secta-
rian appropriation of the public funds ; and it was clearly shown that it
would be utterly destructive of the whole scheme of public school instruc-
tion to do so, even if it could be legally done. But it seems that neither
the Constitution of the State nor the public welfare are to be regarded,
when they stand in the way of Roman Catholic sectarianism and exclusive-
ness.

There is an inference for you 1 and a very unfounded one it is, too.

It must be manifest to the Common Council, that, if the Roman Catho-
lic claims are granted, all the other Christian denominations will urge their
claims for a similar appropriation

And, I say, they have the right to do it. I wish they would do it, for I
believe it would be better for the future character of the city, and for its
fame, when this generation shall have passed away. If they did claim it,
and the claim was granted, then an effort would be made to raise good and
pious and honest men.

and that the money raised for education by a general tax will be solely

applied to the purposes of proselytism, through the medium of sectarian
schools. But if this were done, would it be the price of peace ? or would
it not throw the apple of discord into the whole Christian community ?
Should we agree in the division of the spoils ?

I am exceedingly sorry that the gentlemen who drew up the remon-
strance had not more confidence in the power of their own religious princi-
ple, than to suppose that it would be necessary to contend violently for what
they call the " spoils." We have submitted to be deprived of them for
years, and we have not manifested such a disposition ; and I am surprised
that they, who understand so much of the power of religion, should attach
so much value to the little money which is to be distributed, as to suppose
that it would set Christians professing Christians together by the ears in
its distribution.

Should we agree in the division of the spoils ? Would each sect be
satisfied with the portion allotted to it ? We venture to say, that the sturdy
claimants who now beset the Council would not be satisfied with much less
than the lion's share ; and we are sure that there are other Protestant de-
nominations besides ourselves who would not patiently submit to the exac-
tion.

After what they have said by authority as the grounds of their oppo-
sition, where, instead, they should have had history for their guide, I am
not surprised that they should prophesy in the matter. I, too, may prophe-
sy, and I will say that the " sturdy claimants " are as respectable as they
are, and I trust it will never be attributable to us that we claim more than
is our common right ; and if that should be violated with respect to the
Methodist Episcopal denomination, we shall be far from the ranks of those
who may be the violators.

But, when all the Christian sects shall be satisfied with their individual
share of the public fund, what is to become of those children whose parents
belong to none of these sects, and who cannot conscientiously allow them
4.0 be educated in the peculiar dogmas of any one of them ? The different

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 211

committees who, on a former occasion, approached your honorable body,
have shown that, to provide schools for these only, would require little less
than is now expended ; and it requires little arithmetic to show that, when
the religious sects have taken all, nothing will remain for those who have
not yet been able to decide which of the Christian denominations to prefer.
It must be plain to every impartial observer, that the applicants are opposed
to the whole system of public school instruction.

Have we said so ? And on what authority have these gentlemen the
right to say it, if we have not ? Where are their data ? And yet they come
before this honorable body and make such assertions, with the sanction of
their whole Church !

And it will be found that the uncharitable exclusiveness of their creed
must ever be opposed to all public instruction which is not under the direc-
tion of their own priesthood. They may be conscientious in all this ; but,
though it be no new claim on their part, we cannot yet allow them to guide
and control the consciences of all the rest of the community.

Why, it would be a silly and absurd thing, on our part, to look for it.
But we never thought of it. It is a fiction of these gentlemen's own crea-
tion. I contend, we ask nothing for the community, but for ourselves, and
I trust it will be granted if it is right ; and if we can be shown that it is
not right, we will abandon it cheerfully. But their assertion is wholly des-
titute of foundation.

We are sorry that the reading of the Bible in the public schools, with-
out note or commentary, is offensive to them ; but we cannot allow the Holy
Scriptures to be accompanied with their notes and commentaries

Have we asked such a thing ? or in any way solicited it ?

and to be put into the hands of the children, who may hereafter be the

rulers and legislators of our beloved country ; because, among other bad
things taught in these commentaries, is to be found the lawfulness of mur-
dering heretics, and the unqualified submission, in all matters of conscience,
to the Roman Catholic Church.

I have a feeling of respect for many of their denomination, but not for
the head or the heart of those who drew this document up. Here it states
an unqualified falsehood. Here it puts forth a false proposition, and that
proposition has been introduced here as a slander. I can prove that it is
so. And, depending on the confidence here reposed in me, I propose and
pledge myself to forfeit a thousand dollars, to be appropriated in charities
us this Council may direct, if those gentlemen can prove the truth of this
allegation ; provided they agree to the same forfeiture, to be appropriated
in a similar manner, if they fail to establish its truth. If they can prove
that the Catholic Church sanctions, or has made it lawful, to murder here-
tics, I will forfeit that sum. I feel indignant that we should be met, when
we come with a plain and reasonable and honest request to submit to the
proper authorities, with slanders such as that, and that in the name of
religion, which is holy. I wish them to hear what I say. I know very well
their books tell them so ; but they should look at the original, and not at
secondary authorities, when they assail our reputation and our rights.

212 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

But if the principle on which this application is based should be admit-
ted, it must be carried far beyond the present purpose. If all are to be
released from taxation when they cannot conscientiously derive any benefit
from the disbursement of the money collected, what will be done for the
Society of Friends, and other sects who are opposed to war under all cir-
cumstances ?

With that I have nothing to do, and therefore I will pass on to another
point.

And this is what the remonstrants call a strong issue. They assert that
no history could be written which could either omit to mention the Roman
Catholic Church, or mention it without recording historical facts unfavor-
able to the Catholic Church. If this be the case, I ask you whether, as citi-
zens entitled to the rights of citizens, we are to be compelled to send our
children to schools which cannot teach our children history without blacken-
ing us ? But again they say :

We assert that, if all the historical facts in which the Church of Rome
has taken a prominent part, could be taken from writers of her own com-
munion only, the incidents might be made more objectionable to the com-
plainants than any book to which they now object.

No doubt of it ; and it only proves that Catholic historians have no
interest to conceal what is the truth. But I contend that there are pages in
Catholic history brighter than any in the history of Methodism ; and that
there are questions and passages enough for reading-lessons, without select-
ing such as will lead the mind of the Catholic child to be ashamed of his
ancestors. The Methodist Episcopal Church is a respectable Church, and I
am willing to treat it with becoming respect ; but it is a young Church ; it
is not so old as the Catholic Church, and therefore has fewer crimes ; but I
contend, again, it has fewer virtues to boast of. And, in its career of a hun-
dred years, it has done as little for mankind as any other denomination.

History itself, then, must be falsified for their accommodation ; and yet
they complain that the system of education adopted in the public schools
does not teach the sinfulness of lying 1

We shall come to that presently.

They complain that no religion is taught in these schools, and declare
that any, even the worst form of Christianity, would be better than none ;
and yet they object to the reading of the Holy Scriptures, which are the
only foundation of all true religion. Is it not plain, then, that they will not
be satisfied with any thing short of the total abandonment of public school
instruction, or the appropriation of such portion of the public fund as they
may claim to their own sectarian purposes ?

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 213

All the time they go on the false issue. They charge that which we dis-
claim, and they reason on a charge of their own invention, and which we
never authorized. Now, as I have a word to say about the Holy Scriptures,
I may as well say it at this as at any other time. Their assumption is, that,
because the Scriptures are read, sufficient precaution is taken against infidel-
ity. But I do not agree with them in that opinion, and I will give my rea-
son. What is the reason that there is such a diversity of sects, all claiming
the Holy Scriptures as the centre from which they draw their respective con-
tradictory systems ? that book which appears out of school, by the use
made of it, to be the source of all dissension, when it does not come to the
minds of children with such authority as to fix on their minds any definite
principles. As regards us, while the Protestants say theirs is the true ver-
sion, we say it is not so. We treat the Scriptures reverently ; but the Prot-
estant version of the Scriptures is not a complete copy, and, as it has been
altered and changed, we do not look upon it as giving the whole writings
which were given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We object not to
the Holy Scriptures, but to the Protestant version without note or comment.
We think it too much to ask Protestants to relinquish theirs, and take ours,
for the use of the public schools. If we could ask you if we could pro-
pose that you should take our book if we should ask you to put out the
Protestant Scriptures, and take ours, with our note and comment, do you
think Protestants would agree to it ? Do you not think we should be
arraigned as enemies of the word of God ? for that is one charge made,
when it is sought to denounce us. When we speak language of this
kind, instead of understanding us according to our comprehension of the
subject, they charge that we are enemies to the Holy Scriptures. But to
object to their version is not to object to the Holy Scriptures ; and I am
prepared to show them that no denomination has done so much, in the true
sense, for the Scriptures, as the Catholic Church.

The remonstrants add :

But this is not all. They have been most complaisantly offered the cen-
sorship of the books to be used in the public schools. The committee to
whom has been confided the management of these schools in this city,
offered to allow the Roman Catholic bishop to expurgate from these books
any thing offensive to him.

And now they go out of their way to sneer at us, and you will observe
the flippancy with which they do it :

But the offer was not accepted ; perhaps for the same reason that he
declined to decide on the admissibility of a book of extracts from the Bible,
which had been sanctioned by certain Roman bishops in Ireland. An
appeal, it seems, had gone to the pope on the subject, and nothing could be
said or done in the matter until His Holiness had decided. The Common
Council of New York will therefore find that, when they shall have con-
ceded to the Roman Catholics of this city the selection of books for the use
of the public schools, that these books must undergo the censorship of a
foreign potentate. We hope the time is far distant when the citizens
of this country will allow any forejgn power to dictate to them in matters
relating to either general or municipal law.

214 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Prophets again but not prophets of charity. I, sir, say, not prophets
of good-will, for there is something more in their souls than the public wel-
fare. There is something in their insinuation that is insulting, and a tone
which does not show a mind enlightened and enlarged, and an appreciation
of equal justice and equal rights. Just their way. They hear that an appeal
has gone to the pope ; and if we desired to appeal, also, we should claim
the right to do it without asking permission from any one. Catholics all
over the world do it when their consciences make it a duty, but uot in mat-
ters of this kind. " These books must undergo the censorship of a foreign
potentate ! " Now, we regard him only as supreme in our Church, and
there's an end of it.

"We cannot conclude this memorial without noticing one other ground
on which the Roman Catholics, in their late appeal to their fellow-citizens,
urged their sectarian claims, and excused their conscientious objections to
the public schools. Their creed is dear to them, it seems, because some of
their ancestors have been martyrs to their faith. This was an unfortunate
allusion.

Some ! " Some of their ancestors have been martyrs to their faith." I
speak of the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland ; and when you reflect
on the bigoted and unjust laws which Great Britain founded against all that
were Catholics, by which their churches were wrested from them, and a
bribe was offered as an inducement to the double crime of murder and of
perjury when it authorized any man to bring the head of a Catholic to the
commissioner, and, if he would only swear it was the head of a priest, he
got the same price as for the head of a wolf, no matter whose head it was
and when legislation of that kind continued for centuries, this, you must
agree with me, was being martyrs indeed. But when have the Methodists
shown a sympathy for those contending for the rights of conscience ?
When the dissenters of England claimed to be released from the operation
of the " Test and Corporation " act, by which they were excluded from civil
office, did the Methodist Episcopal Church assist them ? Not a solitary
petition went from them for the enlargement of their freedom. And is it a
wonder that we look to conscience, and admire those who had the firmness
to suffer for conscience' sake ? By the penal laws against Catholics, the
doors of Parliament were closed against us, if we had a conscience, for it
required us to take an oath which we did not believe to be true, and there-
fore we could not swear it. There it is, sir ; it is because we have a con-
science, because we respect it, that we have suffered ; and, while virtue is
admired on earth, the fidelity of the people that are found standing by the
right of conscience will command the admiration of the world. And yet,
we arc told, it was an unfortunate allusion !

Did not the Roman Catholics know that they addressed many of their
fellow-citizens who could not recur to the memoirs of their ancestors with-
out being reminded of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes

They had nothing to do with it.
the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, the fires of Smithfield

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 215

What is that to us ? Are we the people that took part in that ?

or the crusade against the Waldenses ? We would willingly cover these

scenes with the mantle of charity

They had better not make the attempt, for their mantle is too narrow.

and hope that our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens will in future avoid

whatever has a tendency to revive the painful remembrance.

Let them enter upon that chapter, and discuss the charitableness of their
religion, and I am prepared to prove I speak it with confidence in the pres-
ence of this honorable assembly that the Catholic religion is more chari-
table to those that depart from her pale, than any other that ever was yoked
in unholy alliance with civil power.

Your memorialists had hoped that the intolerance and exclusiveness
which had characterized the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, had been
greatly softened under the benign influences of our civil institutions. The
pertinacity with which their sectarian interests are now urged has dissi-
pated the illusion.

Sectarian interests again, although we have disclaimed them !

We were content with their having excluded us, ex catJiedra, from all
claim to heaven, for we were sure they did not possess the keys, notwith-
standing their confident pretensions ;

Why, they need not be uneasy about our excluding them from heaven,
for their opinion is that they have no chance to enter if they have any
thing to do with us ; and therefore our excluding them is of no avail.

nor did we complain they would not allow us any participation in the

benefits of purgatory

Pray, what has that to do with common school education ?

for it is a place they have made for themselves, and of which they may

claim the exclusive property ;

Well, it is no matter whether we believe in purgatory or not ; it ia no
matter for the Common Council to decide. But if they are not satisfied
with our purgatory, and wish to go farther, they may prove the truth of the
proverb, which says, " They may go farther and fare worse."

but we do protest against any appropriation of the public school fund

for their exclusive benefit, or for any other purposes whatever. Assured
that the Common Council will do what it is right to do in the premises, we
are, gentlemen, with great respect, your most obedient servants,

N. BANGS,
THOMAS E. BOND,
GEORGE PECK.

And now I have gone through these two remonstrances, both of which,
it will be seen, refer to the document of the Board of Assistant Aldermen,
and rest their opposition on the same ground. Of that document I will
pass over the introduction; but I may observe that its authors, by what
influence I am unable to say, have been made to rest their report upon an

216 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

issue such as I have already described, and for which our petition furnishes
no basis. I will first call your attention to the following observations :

The petitioners who appeared also contended that they contributed, in
common with all other citizens who were taxed for the purpose, to the accu-
mulation of the common school fund, and that they were therefore entitled
to a participation in its advantages ; that now they receive no benefit from
the fund, inasmuch as the members of the Catholic churches could not con-
scientiously send their children to schools in which the religious doctrines
of their fathers were exposed to ridicule or censure. The truth and justice
of the first branch of this proposition

That is, the payment of taxes.

cannot be questioned. The cwrectness of the latter part of the argument,

so far as the same relates to looks or exercises of any kind in the public schools
reflecting on the Catholic Church, WAS DENIED by the School Society.

Now, it is to be remembered that this denial of any thing objectionable
in the books of the Public School Society was made at the period of the
last application. I am persuaded those gentlemen, if they had known
there was any thing objectionable to the Catholics, would not have denied
it. I am sure they believed there was nothing, and from this circumstance
I think I may fairly draw this inference, that they had not paid that atten-
tion to the books which they should have done, knowing the variety of
denominations contributing to this fund and entitled to its benefits; or,
knowing this, and the feelings and principles of Catholics, that they were
incompetent for the proper discharge of their responsible duties. It is only
on one of these two grounds that I can account for their denial. But since
that time they have not only admitted that the objection was correct, but
they have expunged passages from the books which, at the time of this
denial, they said did not exist. I shall pass on, now, to the two questions
on which the decision of the committee was made to rest. The first is :

Have the Common Council of this city, under the existing laws relative
to common schools in the city of New York, a legal right to appropriate
any portion of the school fund to religious corporations ?

Whether they have, or not, one thing is clear and certain that it is not
as a " religious corporation " that we apply for it ; and it seems to me that
this should have struck the attention of the Public School Society, and the
other gentlemen who have remonstrated. We do not apply as a religious
body ; we apply in the identical capacity in which we are taxed as citizens
of the commonwealth, without an encroachment on principle or the viola-
tion of any man's conscience. But, secondly, they ask :

Would the exercise of such power be in accordance with the spirit of
the Constitution and the nature of our Government ?

Certainly not. If the Constitution and Government have determined
that no religious denomination shall receive any civil privilege, the exercise
of such power will not be in conformity with the spirit of the Constitution
and the nature of our Government. But there is throughout, and in all
these documents, a squeamishness, a false delicacy, a persuasion that every

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 217

thing which excludes religion abroad is right and liberal. It would be
unnecessary for me to follow this report; sentence by sentence, if there had
not been so much reliance placed on it by those who have remonstrated ;
but as so much consequence has been attached to it, I will call your atten-
tion to some other passages. They go on to say :

Private associations and religious corporations were excluded from the
management of the fund and the government of the schools. Private inter-
est, under this system, could not appropriate the public treasure to private
purposes, and religious zeal could not divert it to the purposes of prose-
lytism.

Why, there is nothing of the kind intended. "We have been driven, by
the obligation of our consciences, and at our expense which we are poorly
able to bear to provide schools ; but they are not convenient, they are not
well ventilated, and are not well calculated to give that development to
your young citizens which they ought to have. Why argue, then, against
religious corporations, and, in treating this question, bring prejudices into
view which ought to have no existence in reality ? They then go on to give
the history and origin of the present law, and of the public school fund ;
and it seems that, for a period of time and a long period the Legislature
designated the schools which might participate in this bounty. Each
religious denomination provided for the instruction of its own poor ; they
had provided schools, and their exertions were honorable and laudable.
The Legislature granted its aid, and the respective societies were encour-
aged to go on with the good work ; and they did go on year after year, and
then there was never heard that disputation which appears now to be so
much dreaded. There was not then heard dissension between neighbors, or
strife between societies ; every thing went on peaceably and why ? Be-
cause the schools and the citizens were not then charged that religion was a
forbidden subject. Nor should you now make it a forbidden part of educa-
tion, because on religious principle alone can conscience find a resting-place.
It should be made known that here conscience is supreme that here all
men are free to choose the views which their judgments, with a sense of
their responsibility to an eternal weal or woe, shall dffer for their adoption.
It should be taught that here neighbors have the right to differ, and what-
ever is the right of one must be recognized as the right of the other ; and
the distribution of this fund will be better calculated to benefit the commu-
nity than it can be by these public schools, where every thing seems to be at
par except religion, and that is below par at an immense discount. They
tell us, then, that

The law was imperative in its character, and the several religious socie-
ties of the city possessed a legal right to draw their respective portions of
the fund from the public treasury, subject only to the restriction, that the
money so received should be appropriated to the purposes of free and com-
mon education.

But that " right to draw " has been taken away ; yet there is nothing in
the act by which the right to draw is taken away which forbids their receiv-
ing it still, if, in the judgment of this honorable body, the circumstances

218 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

of the case entitle them to it. It is not an impeachment ; the Legislature
had no intention to reflect on religious bodies it had no intention to black-
ball religion in the public schools ; and yet that view has been taken of it.
Such was not the case; but because circumstances had arisen and what
were they ? Why, gross abuses had been practised by one of the religious
societies, and

The funds received by the Church were applied to other purposes than
those contemplated by the act.

Under some pretext, the favor to expend the school moneys had been
conferred on that society in a way that distinguished it from all other Chris-
tian denominations and societies ; and the other, seeing this privilege con-
ferred on one, and not on the rest, ventured to remonstrate with the Legis-
lature ; they intimated that the partiality to that society of Baptists was an
injustice to others, and they remonstrated against the law conferring exclu-
sive privileges, and against no other thing whatever. And yet, by every
document, and by this very document, it seems to be imagined that the
Legislature did not revoke special favors granted to that society, but with-
drew its aid from all Christian Churches ; so that all the men who remon-
strated against this partial legislation were found to have been themselves
deprived of the privilege which they had enjoyed, and this on the strength
of their own remonstrances for quite another thing. And the discretion
which the Legislature had exercised to designate the schools which should
receive this fund, was transferred to this honorable body, the Council of the
city of New York. And why was it transferred ? I cannot speak positive-
ly, but, while it seems to me that there were abuses shown to exist by the
remonstrants, of which they made complaint, we may suppose the Legisla-
ture conceived it difficult for them to take cognizance of the matter, not
being on the spot, but that the Common Council, being here, and being a
body chosen by the people, in whi<;h, consequently, the public would have
confidence, was the best and most fitting body to designate, from time to
time, the institutions or schools which should be entitled to receive those
school moneys. This must have been their intention, and yet this has been
interpreted as repealing the law, in order to deprive those denominations of
a legal right (for right they had, and they could come and demand the
money), and not a mere transfer of the discretion to give this money, from
the Legislature to the Common Council of New York. Now, all this, which
is so plain and simple, has been construed by these gentlemen of the Public
School Society as what ? As conferring a monopoly upon them as a law
disqualifying all religious denominations receiving it. So it has been inter-
preted. But, if it were so, we ask not for the money on the ground that we
are a religious corporation, but of public utility, for the purpose of giving
an education to a large and destitute class which otherwise will not have
the means to procure it. We ask it to secure a public advantage ; and if
the objections anywhere exist to which I have directed your attention, they
do not apply to our case. Gentlemen, I think it unnecessary to detain you
any longer on this subject as referred to in this document, because, while the

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 219

question is composed of one simple fact, they are arguing against dangers
which do not threaten them. But then they go on to say :

To prevent, in our day and country, the recurrence of scenes so abhor-
rent to every principle of justice, humanity, and right, the Constitution of
the United States, and of the several States, have declared, in some form or
other, that there should be no establishment of religion by law ; that the
affairs of the State should be kept entirely distinct from, and unconnected
with, those of the Church ; that every human being should worship God
according to the dictates of his own conscience ; that all churches and reli-
gions should be supported by voluntary contribution, and that no tax should
ever be imposed for the benefit .of any denomination of religion, for any
cause, or under any pretence whatever.

All this is doctrine to which we subscribe most heartily. And while we
seek to be relieved from the evils under which we suffer, we do not seek
relief to the detriment of any other sect. What ! is this country independ-
ent of religion ? Is it a country of atheism, or of an established religion ?
Neither the one nor the other ; but a country which makes no law for reli-
gion, but places the right of conscience above all other authority granting
equality to all, protection to all, preference to none. And while all these
documents have gone on the presumption of preference, all we want is that
we may be entitled to protection and not preference. We want that the
public money shall not be employed to sap religion in the minds of our
children that they may have the advantages of education without the in-
termixture of religious views with their common knowledge, which goes to
destroy that which we believe to be the true religion. There is another
feature connected with this subject which is the definition given of a pub-
lic school, such as should be entitled to this money. " If the school money,"
say these gentlemen and I must believe they are imposed on by a statement
which is not correct. I believe if they had known the true statement, they
would not have published in their report such a statement as this :

If the school money should be divided among the religious denomina-
tions generally, as some have proposed, there will be nothing left for the
support of schools of a purely civil character ; and if there should be, in
such a state of things, any citizen who could not, according to his opinions
of right and wrong, conscientiously send his child to the school of an exist-
ing sect, there would be no public school in which he could be educated.
This might, and probably would, be the case with hundreds of our citizens.

Now let me for a moment invite your attention to that part of the sub-
ject which I have now the honor to submit to you ; and it is that part on
which all these documents go, that religious teaching would vitiate all claim
to a participation in this public fund. A common education, then, as under-
stood by the State, is a secular education ; and these documents contend
that any religious teaching, no matter how slight, will vitiate all claim to a
participation in this fund. Now the Public School Society, in their reports,
have from time to time stated themselves, and, observe, with a consciousness
that the jealous eye of the community is upon them they state, still under
this restriction, that they have imparted religion. Now if this doctrine be
correct, they are no more entitled to the common school fund than others.

220 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Or is the doctrine correct, and yet one must abide by it, and not another ?
Again, these gentlemen charge us with accusing them of teaching infidelity,
when taking this tax they give that education, which, they state to us when
we apply for a portion of this money, the State contemplates to give the
scholar that is, an education without religion. Now if the child be
brought up without religion, what is he, if not an infidel ? " Oh," they
say, " we do not teach it." Is it necessary to teach infidelity ? It does not
require the active process. To make an infidel, what is it necessary to do ?
Cage him up in a room, give him a secular education from the age of five
years to twenty-one, and I ask you what he will come out, if not an infidel ?
Whether he will know any thing about God ? And yet they tell you that
religious teaching is a disqualification. What will a child be, then, if you
give him their education from his youth up to the age of twenty-one ? Will
he know any thing of God, and of a Divine Redeemer ? of a Trinity, of the
incarnation of the Saviour, and the redemption of the world by the atone-
ment of Christ, or of any of those grand doctrines which are the basis and
corner-stone of our Christianity ? And because we object to a system of
teaching which leads to practical infidelity, we are accused of charging the
Public School Society with Kfeing infidels. They furnish the basis of the
charge ; we do not wish to do so. Now I ask you whether it was the inten-
tion of the Legislature of New York, or of the people of the State, that the
public schools should be made precisely such as the infidels want ? Permit
me to say, when I use the term infidel, I mean no disrespect td those that are
so. I would not be one ; but I respect their right to be what they please.
A few days ago, a gentleman who professes to be one of this class, and who
would not allow his children to be scholars where religion is taught at all,
said he could send them to the public school, for there the education suited
him. What, then, is the consequence ? That while the public education of
New York is guarded in such a manner as to suit the infidel, the children
become so. And is there any authority in this board, or of a legislative
body at Albany, or is there any board in the Union, with power by the Con-
stitution to exclude religion or to qngraft it ? Neither the one nor the
other. The infidel says truly that there is no religion taught, and therefore
he can send his children ; and I should like to know why any member of a
Christian Church should be forced to do violence to his convictions, and not
be permitted to enjoy equal advantages ? If the infidel can send his chil-
dren to these schools, because no religion is taught there, and who, therefore,
has to make no sacrifices of conscience, why cannot the Christian enjoy
equal advantages ? They say their instruction is not sectarianism ; but it is ;
and of what kind ? The sectarianism of infidelity in its every, feature.
But because it is of a negative kind, and they do not admit the doctrines
of any particular denomination because they do not profess to teach reli-
gion, therefore it is suited for all 1 As a test, therefore, of this principle,
give this purely secular knowledge to a young man, keep him from inter-
course with the rest of the world, give him nothing else, and what sort of a
man would he be ? What would be the state of his mind ? A blank a
perfect blank as to religious impressions. But I contend that it is infidelity,

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 221

and I hope the public school gentlemen hear what I say. But again, I do
not charge it on their intention, and their assertion is purely gratuitous
when they say that such an accusation is made against them. Here is the
observation of the report on this subject :

If religious instruction is communicated, it is FOREIGN to the intentions
of the school system, and should be instantly abandoned. Religious instruc-
tion is no part of a common school education.

Such, then, is the' nature of that report which, I take leave to repeat, has
been prepared by the gentlemen who drew it up as a committee, under the
impression fixed on their minds that Catholics want this money to promote
their religion, and that if it were granted to us, others would want it for
their respective religions also ; and, on this assumption they decided. But
against this false issue I protest, whether set forth in this report or in the
two remonstrances before this Council one from the Public School Society,
and the other from the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is not my business
to speak in relation to the Public School Society at large. Of its history I
have taken pains to make myself sufficiently possessed to speak ; and I find
that in its origin, so far from disclaiming all connection with religion, so far
from conceiving religious teaching disadvantageous, it was originally incor-
porated for the purpose of supplying the wants of the destitute portion of
the population, and their petition for a charter set forth

The benefits which would result to society from the education of such
children, by implanting in their minds the principles of KELIGION and
morality.

At this time every denomination taught its own, and received an equal
portion of the fund from the public authorities to aid them in their good
work, so that their children were provided for, and this Society came to
gather in the neglected and the outcast they came as gleaners, after the
reapers had gone through the field, and a most benevolent purpose theirs
was ; and their object, I repeat, when they applied to the Legislature, was set
forth to be (for they did not conceal the advantages of a religious education),
to produce benefits to society by the implanting in the minds of such chil-
dren the principles of religion and morality. There were children belonging
to no denomination ; and this Society, seeing the benefits which would result
to society from the education of such children by implanting in their minds
the principles of religion and morality, undertook this benevolent work, and
covered themselves and the name of their Society with glory by that under-
taking. But it is strange that what then was so advantageous to the com-
munity the implanting in the minds of children the principles of religion
and morality should have ceased to be so now ; and that they or their suc-
cessors should seek to make that very thing a disqualification, and to turn it
against all denominations of Christians, and claim themselves to monopolize
the fund and the teaching on the principle that no religion shall be im-
parted. Now has the Legislature seen fit to alter the charter, so as to make
religious teaching a disqualification of all other sects ?

222 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Was it for that purpose that this Society, step by step, obtained enlarged
privileges, by which not only the neglected children of the community, but
those of others, came under their care that they obtained grants from the
public treasury and the exchequer of the city, to an amount of many thou-
sands of dollars, until the Society claims to be the true and only Society,
though existing as a private corporation, electing its own body, fixing a tax
for the privilege of membership, sometimes $10, at others $20, $25, and
$50, any of which sums is too much for a poor man to pay ; and out of this
organized body electing the trustees to carry on the work ?

I mention this, not to blame them for they believe they are doing good
but to show that even with men who are honorable in every-day life, how
much watchfulness and vigilance, how much tact and talent, is used to grasp
more and more, till they absorb all, and completely deprive all others of any
participation in the advantages of controlling this fund.

It is not my intention, as it is not my peculiar province, to enter into the
legal part of the argument ; but I have to regret that the gentleman who
did intend to treat it, and to whose department it belonged, has been unfor-
tunately prevented by the bursting of a small blood-vessel. But, though
my experience has not qualified me to enter into legal matters, yet, as a
citizen, I might have the right to express my opinion on the monopoly
which this Society claims ; and that opinion is contrary to the monopoly,
and not only contrary to their monopoly simply regarded as a monopoly,
Imt because I believe that a monopoly of this description should be regard-
ed with double jealousy. Why ? Because this monopoly is of greater
weight than in ordinary cases ; of great weight pecuniarily for, last year,
the fund amounted to $115,000 because the distribution of that money
gives to them a patronage which, considering the weakness of human
nature, is in danger of being used disadvantageous^ because it gives to
them privileges of infinitely higher importance than any that can be esti-
mated by dollars and cents the privilege of stamping their peculiar charac-
ter on the minds of thousands and tens of thousands of our children. . They
ought to be men, to discharge the trust of such a monopoly, as pure as
angels, and almost imbued with wisdom from above ; such men they should
be, when they would venture to come and stand by the mother's side, and
say, in effect, " Give me the darling which you have nourished at your breast
give it to me, a stranger, and I will direct its mind. True, you are its
parent, but you are not fit to guide its youthful progress, and to implant
true principles in its mind ; therefore give it to me, and give me also the
means wherewith to instruct it." That is the position of that Society ; and
they ought to be almost more than men for this as doubtless they are hon-
orable men in their proper places ; but of that we should have the most
satisfactory evidence, that we may be well assured that they are fitted to
discharge their duties. It is this consideration that brought me here, as the
first pastor of a body of people large and numerous as they are known to
be ; but, poor as many of them are, and exposed to many hardships, they
have children with immortal souls, whose condition is involved in this ques-
tion ; and if it is an impropriety in the clerical character, I would rather

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 223

undergo the reproach, than neglect to advocate their rights, as far as I have
the power, with my feeble ability.

The Catholics of the city of New York may be estimated as one fifth of
the population ; and when you take account of the class of children usually
attending the public schools, and consider how many there are in this city
who are in affluent circumstances, which enable them to give an education
to their children, who do not therefore participate in the teaching of the
public schools ; and when you consider the numbers not attending any
school at all I say, of those people who, by their poverty, are the objects
most usually composing the number that require the assistance of the com-
mon school fund, Catholics are one third, if not more. And when I see this
one third excluded respecting, as I do, their welfare in this life, as well as
their welfare in a brighter world then it is that I come forward thus pub-
licly, and stand here to plead for them. I conceive we have our rights in
question, and therefore, most respectfully, I demand them from this honor-
able board.

I am not surprised that there should be remonstrances against our claim ;
but I did hope, in an age as enlightened as this is, and among gentlemen of
known liberality of feeling, that their opposition would not have been char-
acterized as this has been. However, it is not to me a matter of surprise ;
for I believe if some of those gentlemen, who consider themselves now as
eminent Christians, had lived at the period when Lazarus lay languishing at
the gate of the rich man, petitioning for the crumbs that fell from the table,
they would have sent their remonstrance against his petition.

When the Methodist Episcopal Church sent its petition for a portion of
this fund, some eight years ago, then it was not unconstitutional ! Yet, did
the Catholics send in their remonstrance against it ? When their theologi-
cal seminaries obtained (and they still receive) the bounty of the State, did,
or do, the Catholics complain ? Has there been a single instance of illiber-
ality on the part of Catholics, or a want of disposition to grant rights as
universal as the nature of man may require ? And I have been astonished
only at this, that good men, with good intentions, should prefer to cling to
a system, and to the money raised for its support by the public liberality
that they would sooner see tens of thousands of poor children contending
with ignorance, and the companions of vice, than concede one iota of their
monopoly in order that others may enjoy their rights. I say this because I
am authorized to say it.

And what am I to infer, but that they prefer the means to the end ? The
end designed is, to convey knowledge to the minds of our children ; the
means, is the public fund ; and, by refusing to cause the slightest variation
in their system, they cling to the means, while they leave thousands of chil-
dren without the benefit which the State intended to confer. They may
pursue that course, but the experience of the past should have taught them
that, while they maintain their present character, a large portion of their
fellow-citizens have not cannot have confidence in them.

We have not had confidence in them for years past ; and that we have
endeavored to supply an education to our children ourselves, is sufficient

224 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

proof that we shall endeavor to supply it for years to come, rather than suf-
fer our children to be taught under a system which makes them ashamed of
the religion their fathers profess.

But they have said, that, if a portion of this fund is given to Catholics,
all other sects will want it. Then let them have it. But I do not see that
that is probable ; and my reason is this : They have sent in remonstrances
against the claim of the Catholics, as you will see by a reference to Docu-
ment No. 80, all of which go to prove that they are satisfied with the pres-
ent public school system. And if they are satisfied, and their children
derive benefit from it, let them continue to frequent the schools as they do
now. The schools are no benefit to Catholics now ; we have no confidence
in them ; there is no harmony of feeling between them and us. We have no
confidence that those civil and religious rights that belong to us will be
enjoyed while the Public School Society retains its present monopoly. We
do not receive benefit from those schools ; do not, then, take from Catholics
their portion of the fund, by taxation, and hand it over to those who do not
give them an equivalent in return. Let those who can, receive the advan-
tages of these schools ; but, as Catholics cannot, do not tie them to a system
which is intended for the advantage of a class of society of which they
form one third, but from which system they can receive no benefit.

There are many other topics connected with this subject to which I
might advert ; but I must apologize for the length of time that I have tres-
passed on your patience. I feel, unaccustomed as I am to address such a
body, and hurried as was my preparation, that I have not been able to pre-
sent the subject before you in that clear and lucid manner that would make
it interesting ; but it was not with that view that I claimed your attention
in relation to it ; it was with far higher motives ; and I now, with confi-
dence, submit it to your judgment.

THEODOBE SEDGWICK, Esq. (with whom was Mr. Ketclmm),
as counsel for the Public School Society, then addressed the
board, and said :

MR. PRESIDENT : I appear here, with my learned friend and associate,
Mr. Ketchum, on behalf of the Trustees of the Public School Society ; and
I desire in the outset, for those whom I represent, as well as for myself, to
reciprocate all that the reverend gentleman has said of the motives of the
parties for whom we respectively appear. The trustees are animated by no
feeling but a desire to promote what they conceive will be for the true inter-
ests and welfare of the city ; in which they are as deeply interested as any
men can be. They have no other interest than to maintain that which, in
their judgment, is right in itself, and will be beneficial to the whole body.
Impelled by these motives themselves, they are willing to believe that those
who are opposed to them are animated by the same feeling. It is most espe-
cially desirable that, in a case like this, the petitioners should be hoard, as
they are being heard, in the most solemn manner the forms of the city gov-
ernment will permit. We have no doubt they will be fairly heard ; we are

SPEECH OF THEODORE SEDGWICK. 225

convinced that the decision to which you may come, -whether for or against
them, will be righteously pronounced. The trustees, therefore, are most
anxious that the case should be fully examined. What, sir, is the precise
question before us ? The petition, if I understand it, asks your honorable
body for a civil ordinance for an ordinance in regard to the application of
money. I shall therefore waive all reply to that portion of the reverend
gentleman's opening remarks which relates to the trustees themselves and
the Methodist congregation. That part of his argument has nothing to do
with the merits of the case ; however pointed and piquant it may have
been, it has nothing to do with the point which you have to decide. Tin-
trustees here sink into nothing ; the petitioners also disappear from our
view ; and the real question remains, How is the intellectual condition of
our children to be best promoted ? On that question two great bodies are
at issue, and it is especially consonant with our form of government, that
both should be fairly heard ; it is in consonance with that principle of our
government, which bases it on harmony and compromise, with that respect
which is due even to the opinions of the minority. The question is now
being heard, as it only best can be heard ; and all will rest content, no
doubt, with the decision, whatever that decision may be.

If I understand this application correctly, it is an application to alter, to
modify, or, at any rate, to affect the common school system of this State.
Not only of the city, sir, for it has a more extensive bearing ; it is to affect
the whole system of the State of New York ; and your honorable body can-
not come to a proper decision of this matter, unless you bring your minds
to the consideration of the origin of our system of education, its establish-
ment, development, and extent. This system, sir, which you are this night
called upon, in my humble judgment, not merely to modify, but to over-
throw, had its foundation laid as far back as the year 1795. On the 9th of
April, 1795, an act was passed ''for the encouragement of public schools ; " and
it is well worth while to know what was the opinion of the Legislature
which framed this act in regard to the kind of education to be communi-
cated in the schools which were to receive its bounty. That act appropri-
ated $20,000 annually for the support of those schools in the different coun-
ties of the State, in which the children should be " instructed in the English
language, or be taught English grammar, arithmetic, mathematics, and such
other branches of knowledge as are most useful and necessary to complete a
good English education."

Such was the whole extent and aim of the system as it was originally
founded. It was, to give a purely secular education. This act was the
germ of our present system ; but the question was not fully understood, nor
its importance sufficiently appreciated ; there was not sufficient genial heat
in the body politic to develop it ; it was not long acted under, and soon
became obsolete.

In 1801, another act was passed, ''for the encouragement of literature :,''
by which four lotteries were established, to aid in the accomplishment of
the object a pure object, deriving its support from a most impure source :

226 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

for the proceeds of these lotteries were to be applied to the support of the
common school in such way as the Legislature might direct.

In 1805, the first step was taken to establish the system on a firm, per-
manent foundation, and then (2d April) the proceeds of the first 500,000
acres of the public lands which should be sold were set apart, to be invest-
ed as a permanent fund for the support of common schools for the education
of the children of New York. This fund was afterward increased, during
the years 1808, 1810, and 1811, by the receipt of the surplus fees of the
Clerk of the Supreme Court, by the proceeds of certain stock in the Mer-
chants' Bank in this city, and the sums then flowing from lotteries, lands,
fees, and banks, were invested, 'from time to time, by the Comptroller, for
the same object. In 1811, the fund was found to be of a considerable
amount, and commissioners were appointed to report to the Legislature, at
the next session, how this fund could be best appropriated, and also to pre-
pare a system for the organization and establishment of common schools.
They accordingly reported, and, in 1812 (10th June), the first general act
was passed, which laid the foundation, broad and deep, of the present
system.

That act directed, in general terms, that, as soon as the revenue from the
school fund should amount to $50,000, it should be appropriated among the
different counties of the State ; commissioners and inspectors were to be
elected by the towns, to expend the amount awarded to them ; and trustees
of the school districts were also chosen to carry out the scheme.

But in the first acj; a provision was inserted and it is important in
regard to the whole common school system to bear it in mind that the
towns and counties were not compelled to contribute to the expense of edu-
cation at all. Such only as voluntarily accepted the system, and taxed
themselves to a similar amount, were permitted to receive any portion of
the fund. But if they chose to disregard the matter altogether, they were
at liberty so to do. The next year this error for so it seems the Legisla-
ture deemed it was corrected. The towns and counties were compelled to
adopt the system, and the supervisors were directed to tax the towns to the
amount of the proportion allotted to them from the school fund. They did
then what they had not before dared to do they taxed the people directly
for the purposes of education. That act was passed in 1814. The system
thus established was, as your honors well know, incorporated in the Revised
Statutes, which, in 1830, were made the code of our State ; and that beau-
tiful fabric still remains as it was then fashioned so simple, and yet so
beautiful, I should be loath to see a hand laid upon it.

The functions of the original Superintendent of Common Schools have
been merged in the Secretary of State, but in other respects no alteration
has been made. The annual revenue of the fund is divided among the
counties, who arc compelled to raise, by taxation, a sum equal to their
respective shares ; commissioners were elected, and by them the money is
apportioned among the towns, and these again are subdivided into districts,
and trustees elected to take charge of the school-houses, and to have the
immediate supervision of the schools.

SPEECH OF THEODORE SEDGWICK. 227

These trustees, at stated periods (once a year), make their report to the
commissioners, the commissioners to the county clerks, and they to the
superintendent, now Secretary of State ; and thus is one harmonious system
established throughout the State. In the last report, of 1840, it is stated
that but one town in the State has not reported during the last year. At
the establishment of the system, there was great diversity of opinion on the
subject there was great languor and indifference among the people, and it
was long before the towns generally came to take an interest in it ; it was
long before the trustees made regular reports of the matters under their
charge ; but, as the last report of the superintendent shows, there has been
a great progress of opinion ; every town, except one, has made its report
during the last year, showing the condition of its schools. In the year
1795, $20,000 were appropriated to the common school system ; in 1845, it
is calculated, by the report of the superintendent, that the capital of the
common school fund will amount to five millions of dollars. These facts
alone, then, show the certain progress made, not only in the means for the
accomplishment of the object of the system, but in the minds and hearts
of the people themselves.. Five millions of dollars, then, will be the capi-
tal, and two millions will be annually expended for the education of the
citizens of the State of New York ! 10,766 districts have reported, and
557,229 children are actually under instruction in these schools ! Now, I
suppose, having reference to the magnitude of the State, and to its popula-
tion and resources, it may most safely be affirmed, there is no such system
for the education of the poorer classes of any country in the universe no
system of this grandeur, by which the people take care that the people shall
be educated made competent to discharge those duties, without which the
form and fabric of our Government are a mockery. This is the general sys-
tem throughout the State. Now let us examine more particularly those fea-
tures which relate to this city, with which, at this time, we are more imme-
diately concerned. In 1813, the first act to which I have alluded extended
its provisions to this city ; and it is somewhat remarkable that the Legisla-
ture then drew a line between the population of this city and of the coun-
try, and required the city to levy a tax for this object, before it required the
country population to do so. In 1814, as I have already said, the system
was applied to the entire State, and all counties were required to raise, by
taxation, an amount equal to their portion of the fund. By that act, cer-
tain schools were specified as the recipients of this common school fund,
and such other incorporated religious societies as then supported charity
schools. In 1824, this act was repealed, and the Common Council was
authorized, once in three years, to designate the institutions and schools
which should be entitled to receive the school moneys. After the passage
of this act, a petition from a great portion of the property-owners of this
city was presented to the Legislature, praying leave to raise, by taxation on
this city and county, a further sum besides that already required of them,
for the same purpose of educating the destitute poor. I claim no peculiar
merit for them in so doing, but they are at least entitled to the credit, such
as it is, of comprehending their own interest. They saw that the education

228 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

of the poor was essential to their own welfare. Perhaps this is the only
instance on record of citizens soliciting the favor of being taxed. It was
granted, and the Corporation was then authorized to impose a special tax
on this city for the support of schools. And what has since been the devel-
opment of this system in this city ? In the year 1838, $34,000 were received
from the school fund ; $34,000, or an equal amount to that received, were
raised under the compulsory clause of the school system acts, and $73,000 in
addition were raised by this voluntary taxation ; so that the annual revenue
of the fund in controversy exceeds $140,000 no trifling sum, to be distrib-
uted by this municipal body. Now, if you please, what is the tendency of
this system ? its practical effect its mode of tuition the nature of its
instruction ? In the first place, there is no law on the subject. The rever-
end gentleman has said that, if the prayer were granted, they would con-
form to the provisions of the law ; he was willing that the body which he
represents should apply the fund as the law directs. But the law makes no
provision in the matter. If the Koran was taught in a common school, the
law would not interfere the law would not shut the school ; it must be got
at in some other way. This, the very essence of the matter, was left, and
doubtless intentionally left, to the people of the State and to this honorable
body. Throughout the State, the people elect their officers for the manage-
ment of these schools ; here it is done through this body, who are elected
by the people. You, then, who are the representatives of the people, decide;
to whom this fund shall be distributed. Now, at the outset the question
may arise and a great portion of the remarks of the reverend gentleman
compel a notice of it whether the education of the people is a proper sub-
ject of governmental concern. If I understand the argument of the rever-
end gentleman, it tends to the negative of this proposition. When he says
the trustees of our public schools " take the children from their mother,
deprive the parents of tlwir offspring" I understand him to say and it is not
the first time, by any means, that this question has been mooted that the
State has no right to interfere ; that the matter should be left to the parent ;
that the State should not interpose between the father and his child. If
that argument is sound, then the whole system should be abolished ; if the
State ought not to interfere at all, taxation for this object must be done
away with, and no further sums should be levied, and the school fund,
guaranteed by the Constitution, should go back into the general coffers.
But, right or wrong, such is not the understanding of the people of this
State. They have said that there is a portion of every population that does
not sufficiently appreciate the advantages of education voluntarily to secure
them ; they know, or think that they know, by experience, that such
parents, unless compelled, will not properly attend to the interests of the
child, and therefore the people of the State say, " We will interfere ; no
man shall come up to his majority, and claim the right of voting, without
that education which shall prepare him, at least in part, to exercise that
right. He shall have at least a portion of that instruction, without which
he is a firebrand in the midst of a magazine." This matter, therefore, no
longer admits of argument. The question to be argued here is, not whether

SPEECH OF THEODOEE SEDGWICK. 229

the father and the mother are the best judges of the interests of the child
in this point of view. If so, we are cast on the sea of abstract discussion.
We must assume something we must take something for granted. The
postulate in this case is, " the State requires its children to have some kind
of education." What kind, then, shall that be ? Is the present system the
best, or shall we have something new, and repudiate that which the expe-
rience of thirty years has sanctioned and approved ? There are three kinds
of education which the State might give. There is the purely secular edu-
cation, such as the first act, to which I have referred, contemplates such as
the master gives to an apprentice. This secular education may be better or
worse, more or less extensive. The child may be taught to read and write,
and may be given what is called by the State " a purely English education."
There is another kind of instruction the infant may be imbued with those
fundamental principles of morals about which there is no dispute, at least
not in this country, nor in any part of Christendom about which the body
which the reverend gentleman represents and we Protestants all equally
agree ; as to the moral code of Christianity, there is no material difference
of opiniofi among us. But, beyond that, there is still another branch of
instruction which is properly called religious, and it is because those two
phrases " religious " and " moral " have been used occasionally without
an accurate apprehension of their signification, that the documents of the
trustees have been misconstrued. But when the term " moral " education
is used, it only means that education which instructs the children in those
fundamental tenets of duty which are the basis of all religion ; it does not
mean that sectarian or dogmatic teaching which constitutes what is more
properly termed a " religious " education. The common schools have meant
from the beginning to teach the children the great moral precepts, " Thou
shalt not steal, thou shalt not lie," and others ; but they have riot intended
to teach either Episcopalianism or Methodism, Catholicism or Unitarianism,
for from that controversial leaning they have intended and if I understand
the system, the Legislature intended that the schools should keep aloof.
It never can be imparted without involving the parents and the children in
bitter disputes endless in their nature, whose inevitable effect would be to
exasperate the minds of the parents toward each other, and be either use-
less, or positively injurious to the children. A religious education, properly '
so called, no man can undervalue. If a moral education is given, the other
invaluable instruction must be superadded ; but the State does not intend
to give it. The State intends to give a " secular " and moral, but not a
religious education ; the State does not intend to give a sectarian education,
and that is precisely what, if I apprehend correctly, the reverend gentleman
does intend to give. Such as I have described is the character of the in-
struction in this State ; and that of the city is in harmony with it. It is a
system, I repeat, by which it is intended to confer a secular and moral edu-
cation. It has been thought that, for the purposes of moral teaching, the
Bible contains that in which all sects can agree from which no sect can
dissent. Now, what is the prayer of the petitioners ? I suppose it is hardly
necessary, in this age and in this country, to deny any feeling of hostility to

230 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Catholics. It' there is one feeling that has spread more than another
throughout this country, it is one of religious toleration it is, that this
country was designed and was provided as an asylum for the oppressed of
other countries. It has been so most fortunately for the Catholics of Ireland
and the poor peasant of the Rhine. There is no feeling of hostility to the
Catholic as such ; still less to the foreigner as such. There was a time
when Catholicism and Christianity went hand in hand when their fellow-
ship was broken by no jar nor schism when all were Catholics. One of
the best men who has ever adorned this country, was Bishop Chevm.'s, of
Boston, one of the few who achieved a widespread reputation by mere acts
of private benevolence. And while we can turn to such men as adorning
the Catholic Church, it cannot be that there is any hostility to them as a
sect ; if there be, most assuredly I am not its mouthpiece ; and while I
repudiate all feeling of hostility to the petitioners, this I will further say, I
would not for a moment lend my feeble aid to the public school system, if it
were actuated or marked by intolerance or hostility to Catholics if it did
not maintain a perfect impartiality among all sects. I conceive that this is
not a subject to argue as counsel, from a brief. Unless I were satisfied that
the compliance with this petition would be dangerous to the whole system,
as a lawyer I would not say a syllable in the matter. I would never, on
such a subject, argue against my deliberate conviction as a counsel, for hire.
The professional man must here be merged in the citizen, and it is only as
such that I desire to be heard.

If this matter, however, is properly considered, there can be no pretence
for making it hinge on Catholicism, or for awakening the violence of reli-
gious schisms. Although a portion of the Catholics, at this moment, are
the most prominent petitioners of the most numerous body which demand a
change of the system, yet, in point of fact, they are not more affected by it
than others. The other denominations say, " "We are satisfied with the pres-
ent order of things, and with the education conferred ; but, if you give a
portion of these funds to one sect, to be administered by their hands, we
shall claim our share also." So long as you give a secular education com-
bined with moral instruction alone, and steer entirely clear of all doctrinal
or sectarian principles, all are satisfied ; but the moment an apprehension
exists that a part of this great fund goes to increase the numbers and the
power of one particular sect, that moment the others will eagerly strive to
check what they believe a pernicious influence, and to check it in the same
way. At present these sects tacitly consent to the system pursued by the
trustees, because the common school is now literally a " common scJwol" a
neutral institution ; but give a portion of this fund to promote the interests
of that sect, and others will that instant press in, demanding their equal
share. Those demands you will not be able to resist. I am not speaking
of any speculative matter. You have, sir, petitions couched in these very
terms ; and if you answer the Catholic in the affirmative, you cannot give a
negative to the other claimants. Consider, then, for a moment, the effect of
this. After all the sects have divided the fund among themselves, what is
to become of the children of that large class who arc of no sect, or, at least,

SPEECH OF THEODORE 6EDGWICK. 231

who wish no sectarian education to be given ? Are they to be left utterly
destitute ? The conclusion is irresistible, that this is a direct attempt to
subvert the whole common school system. The grounds taken by the peti-
tioners are twofold. If I understand them correctly, they are totally at
variance and incompatible with each other. One is, that the dogmas of
religion, or religion properly so called, is not taught in these schools, but
that what the reverend gentleman calls the sectarianism of infidelity is
propagated in them. Another objection to the system is, that the children
are made Protestants : in other words, that religion is taught to them. I
leave it to the reverend gentleman to reconcile these propositions for the
purposes of his argument ; for the purposes of mine, it is sufficient that
neither of them is tenable. One is false in point of reasoning, and the other
in point of fact.

And now we approach the citadel, the centre of the discussion. Now,
as to this matter, the petitioners ask your honors to pass a civil ordinance.
The first question that suggests itself is, Save your honors the power to make
the appropriation asked for ? The committee of the Board of Assistants
have already intimated their opinion that no such power rests here that
this application, if made at all, should be presented to the Legislature.
And the Board of Assistants have intimated the further opinion, that the
Legislature has already passed upon this very question. That the Board of
Assistants are right, there is, I venture to affirm, no doubt. The act of
1813, by which the Legislature undertook to direct how the school fund
should be applied in this city, apportioned it among the Trustees of the
Free-School Society now the Public School Society the Orphan Asylum
Society, the Economical School, the African Free School, and such incoi^po-
rated religious societies as now support, or thereafter shall establish, charity
schools, or may apply for the same. That act, beyond any question, gavo-
ttes body power to make the appropriation now asked for. The churches
acted under it, and claimed their share of the school fund. On the 8th of
February, 1822, an act was passed for the relief of the Bethel Baptist
Church of the city of New York. That congregation went begging to
Albany, as other congregations will go if this wretched system shall be
introduced, and asked leave to apply that part of their share which was not
wanted for teachers, to the erection of school-houses. The act was passed,
and its natural consequences ensued. The teachers were underpaid, and
false receipts were used in order to facilitate and conceal the increase of the
property of the corporation. Here a gross fraud was perpetrated. That
fraud was discovered, and it led to a change in the system. The nineteenth
annual report of the School Society contains all the documents and proofs
on the subject. It is sufficient for our present purpose that the fact of the
deception was proved to the satisfaction of the Common Council of the
city, and of the Legislature. The Common Council took the matter up, and
addressed a memorial, signed by Mr. Paulding, then Mayor, to the Legisla-
ture, for the repeal of the act under which the fund was appropriated to
religious societies in the city. They say :

The question for the determination of the Legislature, at this time, is

232 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

presumed to be, whether the Free-School Society shall be suffered to con-
tinue its operations and have the principal management of gratuitous. edu-
cation in the city of New York, or whether the religious societies shall take
it out of its hands, and the poor be educated in sectarian schools.

If religious societies are to be the only participators of the portion of
the school fund for the city of New Tork, a spirit of rivalry will, it is
thought, be excited between different sects, which will go to disturb the
harmony of society, and which will early infuse strong prejudices in the
minds of children taught in the different schools. Moreover, your memo-
rialists would suggest to your honorable body, whether the school fund of
the State is not purely of a civil character, designed for a civil purpose ;
and whether, therefore, the entrusting of it to religious or ecclesiastical
bodies is not a violation of an elementary principle in the politics of the
State and country. Nineteenth Report of Free-School Society.

Upon that memorial a committee of the Assembly reported a bill to
repeal the act in question. That report contains the following passage :

There is, however, one general principle connected with this subject, of
no ordinary magnitude, to which the committee would beg leave to call the
attention of the House.

It appears that the city of New York is the only part of the State where
the school fund is at all subject to the control of religious societies. This
fund is considered by your committee purely of a civil character, and there-
fore it never ought, in their opinion, to pass into the hands of any corpora-
tion or set of men, who are not directly amenable to the constituted civil
authorities of the government, and bound to report their proceedings to the
public. Your committee forbear, in this place, to enter fully into this branch
of the subject, but they respectfully submit whether it is not a violation of
a fundamental principle of our legislation, to allow funds of the State, raised
by a tax on the citizens, designed for civil purposes, to be subject to the
control of any religious corporation. Nineteenth Annual Report of Fre^-
School Society, p. 51.

Upon that memorial and report, both holding this language, the act was
passed, under which your honors are now called upon to grant the claim of
the petitioners, on whose behalf the reverend gentleman has just addressed
you. On the 19th of November, 1824, this law was enacted, entitled " An
act relating to Common Schools in the City of New York," by which it was
provided that

The institutions or sclwols which shall be entitled to receive the school
moneys, shall, from time to time, and at least once in three years, be desig-
nated by the Corporation of this city in Common Council convened.

Now I ask your honor, since statutes were first formed, was ever a church
designated in legal language as an " institution " or a " school ? " That act,
then, coupled with that memorial and report on which it was based, compels
the conviction that it was the intention of the Legislature if my mind is
not clouded by the views I have taken on the subject it is as clear as the
sun at noon-day, that the Legislature intended that this fund should be
divided amongst " institutions and schools," and to be appropriated to the
purposes of education of civil, secular education, not of religious, sectarian
instruction. We arc now, then, after the lapse of only fifteen years, arguing
before this honorable body the very question which was argued and decided
against these petitioners, and that not abstruse or complicated, but one of

SPEECH OF THEODOKE SEDGWICK. 233

the simplest in the very primer book of liberty. The only question which
can by possibility be raised on this branch of the case is the change in the
phraseology adopted in the Eevised Statutes, vol. i. p. 483 (3d. ed.), where,
instead of the words " institutions or schools," the words- " societies or
schools " are substituted. That, certainly, is not the language of the act of
1824 it is not as clear language as that used in the original act, but it is
very apparent that the revisors changed the language without intending to
changing the purport of the provision. Your honors are well aware that
where any change of our statute law was considered necessary by the re-
visors, where an old enactment was altered, or a new provision was intro-
duced, it is uniformly accompanied by a note to show the reason for the
alteration. But there is no note nor comment whatever on this passage.
Your honors are equally well aware that the revisors did, for the simplifica-
tion, and, as they no doubt considered the improvement, of the law, some-
tunes change the phraseology of our statutes, to make it more elegant or
precise ; that is the reason why they here have substituted the word " socie-
ties " for " institutions." It is not to be supposed that they could de-
liberately revert to the exploded enactment, which existed prior to 1824,
without note or comment, explanation or reason, to show why they had re-
established a system once pronounced pernicious. As a matter of law,
therefore, I affirm without hesitation this question has been passed upon by
the Legislature, and that the sovereign power has removed from this honor-
able body the right or authority to apportion this fund among religious
societies. If we are right in this part of the discussion, we might stop here.
If this ground is well taken, the petition must unquestionably be rejected.
Your honors cannot act for want of jurisdiction. But suppose us to be
wrong put out of view the act of 1824, and consider the question as it
presents itself on general principles, as if we were to argue it before a com-
mittee of the Legislature. Have your honors acted on this subject already ?
The present disposition of the school fund is among the Public School Soci-
ety, the Mechanics' Society, the Orphan Asylum, the Harlem School, the
Manhattanville School, the Yorkville School, the Catholic Benevolent Soci-
ety, the New York Institution for the Blind, the Half Orphan Asylum, the
Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans in New York. Of these the
most prominent is the Public School Society, the utility and benefits of
which it is impossible to extol too highly, but whose power the reverend
gentleman most egregiously exaggerated. What are its powers ? In 1805,
this Society was incorporated by the Legislature under the name of " The
Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York, for the
education of such poor children as do not belong to, or are not provided for,
by any religious society." In relation to the original petition on which the
charter was granted, on which the reverend gentleman has commented, it is
sufficient to observe, that at that time no school fund existed, and the peti-
tioners might ask leave to give religious education, or any other species of
education ; whether wise or not, that petition has no connection with the
application of the common school fund. In 1808, the power of that Society
was extended to all children who were proper objects of gratuitous educa-

234 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tion, and the name was changed to "The Free School Society of New
York." On the 8th of January, 1826, it was altered to " The Public School
Society," by which name it is still known. The yearly income of this
" magnificent incorporation," so " dangerous to the liberties of the people,''-
is limited by its charter to $10,000 per annum. This Society has been
called by the reverend gentleman, a " monopoly." I did not expect to
receive to-night a lesson on the evils of monopolies.

That subject we pretty thoroughly discussed some years since, as you,
Mr. President, no doubt well recollect. That discussion was carried on here
by one of the most upright and boldest spirits that ever inhabited a mortal
frame. It is foreign to this subject, but I shall never forego any opportunity
of commemorating, with niy faint praise, the name of William Leggett.
But this Society, sir, is not one of those huge political engines which we
were then taught to dread a Society incorporated under a general statute,
the privileges of which are open to all ; the only object of which is to sup-
ply education to the poor; the annual income of which is limited to $10,000,
is not, I need not assure your honors, such a " dangerous monopoly " as
should exclude it from popular favor. It is just such a monopoly just
such a monster, if the reverend gentleman likes the phrase better as any
one of the churches which he represents. Some better ground of objection
must be found than that this incorporation is a " monopoly." The argu-
ment of the reverend gentleman has certainly the merit of flexibility, but it
stretches too far : he sets out with the proposition that this Society incul-
cates sectarianism, but when he found that would be turned against him, he
goes on the other track, and charges them with infidelity. Not quite satis-
fied with either of these, he starts the certainly novel accusation that it is a
monopoly, and finally he insists that the Society has not the confidence of
the people. As to this matter, like most others, facts speak louder than
words. A statement has been recently prepared in relation to the children
taught in these schools, which shows the nature of their effects on the popu^
lation of this city. The report not only gives the number of the children
taught, but the occupation of the parents has been carefully set down, and a
single glance at it will show what class of society is most interested in the
support of this " dangerous monopoly." Of 16,000 children, no less than
1,488, or about one tenth, are the children of laborers ; 1,461, or nearly
another tenth, are the children of widows ; 945 shoemakers ; 502 cabinet-
makers ; 416 masons ; 579 tailors ; 493 blacksmiths ; while of clergymen
there are but 13 ; of doctors 44 ; lawyers 25 ; and the gentlemen figure in the
list to the amount of 26. This is the proportion in which the children of
the different classes enjoy the benefits of education from the Public School
Society. The reverend gentleman's assertion that the Society has not the
confidence of the public, is somewhat answered by this statement. But if it
were otherwise, should it be thought strange, and would it be singular if
the same eloquent voice which we have heard this night, is constantly raised
to deter one large and important class of the people from entering those
common schools, arousing the prejudices of the poorer part of our popula-
tion as to the motives of the Society and the character of its instruction ?

SPEECH OF THEODORE SEDGWICK. 235

But it is not true. In point of fact they have the confidence of the people
to a most remarkable extent.

This institution has organized 98 schools ; expends annually about
$130,000, and is, as' I have said, the principal agent of the common school
education in our city. This institution has, in its instruction, most sedu-
lously confined itself to a secular and moral education, and most scrupu-
lously eschewed every thing of a sectarian tendency. It is against this insti-
tution that these petitions are most especially aimed.

To come back to the other recipients of the school fund. The Harlem,
Hamilton, Manhattanville, and Yorkville schools, as well as the African and
Mechanics' Society, are, I believe, proper free schools, some of them devoted
to particular classes of society, but all confining themselves to secular moral
education steering clear of sectarianism in every shape. The other institu-
tions do, in some shape or other, convey religious instruction, and, as such,
are exceptions to the general rule.

A report was not long since (I think in 1833) made by the Board of
Assistants against the claims of these latter establishments, on the ground
the same we now urge that this fund is intended for the purposes of secu-
lar education, and that those institutions, such as the Orphan Asylum, no
matter how excellent they may be, no matter how much good they may
effect, do not come within the pale of those educational establishments to
which it was intended that this fund should be devoted. Unfortunately,
the views of the report did not prevail. Your honors have already gone
beyond the intention of the Legislature and the Constitution, and have
already erroneously granted aid to institutions which do not strictly come
within the original design of the common school system. But is this to be
established as a precedent ? I think not. The grants to these institutions,
of small amount and little consequence, will hardly serve as a pretext for
breaking up the system altogether. The application now before you is, that
your honors will be pleased to designate, as among the schools entitled to
participate in the common school fund, St. Patrick's school, St. Peter's
school, St. Mary's school, St. Joseph's school, St. James' school, St. Nicho-
las' school, Transfiguration Church school, and St. John's school.

Now, if your honors please, what is the ground of this petition ? First,
that the Catholics who, as represented by the reverend gentleman, pay taxes
equally with all other citizens, cannot enjoy the benefits of the schools, be-
cause their consciences will not permit them to send their children there. I
am by no means disposed to underrate the force of this objection. If I
oppose this application, it is with no desirer to achieve a paltry triumph over
the petitioners, or the reverend gentleman himself. Our object is that which
actuates him : it is the wish, that the children of the poor be educated to
give them that which the petitioners say they are striving to obtain. If
there is any thing in our system .which, rightly considered, prevents their
enjoyment of its advantages, the system is in that respect wrong. If a large
body of our citizens cannot (in fact and for good reasons) participate in the
advantages of our public free education, that education is on a wrong foot-
ing is radically wrong. But the question is, after all, one of fact. Is the

236 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ground on which they prevent their children from going to these schools
well taken ? What, then, is the reason which they assign ? As I have said,
the objections resolve themselves into two ; and these two are totally incom-
patible and inconsistent with each other. One branch of the objection is,
that the instruction is purely secular. This has been urged not only in the
argument of the reverend gentleman, but the same view of the subject is
presented in the documents presented to this board. It is there stated, in
various forms, that religion is excluded that religion is not taught that
the instruction is purely secular, and that the children grow up infidels in
consequence. That is alleged to be the tendency of the schools. Such is
the first objection. Now, what is the other, or the other head of this same
objection ? That the Bible is used by the pupil " without note or comment"
that the schools are totally Protestant in their bearing, and tend to under-
mine the Catholic faith. One of these positions is, I suppose, with great
respect, untenable : a child cannot well grow up a Protestant and an infidel
at the same time. On which does the gentleman rely for the great responsi-
bility, he assumes in'dissuading his parishioners from availing themselves of
these schools the Bible without "note or comment"? Is this the objec-
tion ? Whose " notes " or " comments" I pray, does be intend to introduce
into our common schools ? Is it possible that the Bible cannot, in this day
and generation, be trusted in the hands of our American children ? If the
whole Bible cannot be used, cannot such extracts from it be compiled as
will satisfy all parties ? This has been the course actually adopted by the
trustees. They habitually use a volume composed of selections from the
Bible. Cannot these selections be made so as to satisfy all sects ? The real
tendency of the reverend gentleman's reasoning in this matter cannot be
appreciated, without recollecting the difference between the Catholic and
Protestant Bible. I do not intend to draw any parallel between the texts
of the translation which we use, and that of the Douay or the Catholic
Bible. All our early associations are so interwoven with our own version,
that it would be no easy matter to give the Catholic translation a fair and
impartial judgment, as far as the richness, beauty, and force of 'style is con-
cerned ; but on one point surely we of the Protestant faith cannot claim any
superiority. In the moral teaching of the two versions there is no consider-
able difference ; in the doctrinal points there are, it is true, some important
discrepancies. Where the word repent is used in our edition, in the Catho-
lic it is, do penance. For the words daily bread, in the Catholic edition, are
substituted, supcrsiibstantial bread. But the great moral precepts (I speak
now of the teaching of our Saviour) are the same. How can it be other-
wise ? We are all Christians ; either Bible is the code of Christ ; but, as
the reverend gentleman has said, it is the "notes and comments" which dis-
tinguish the Catholic from the Protestant edition ; it is to the edition with-
out note or comment that the objection exists. This objection is a funda-
mental one in principle. The Catholic Bible is filled with marginal notes
which inculcate dogmas proving, or seeking to prove, doctrinal points
transubstantiation, for instance, or the necessity of the fasts and penance.
Now, for the purposes of this argument, the truth of these doctrines is not

SPEECH OF TIIEODOKE SEDGWICK. 237

of the slightest importance. I do not care whether Protestant or Catholic
be right. The question is not one of sectarian dogmas, but of education.
The difference is not as to the justice or correctness of the " notes and com-
ments," but as to the propriety of using any whether our children shall be
taught to love their neighbors, and not to lie and not to steal, or whether
their young minds shall be occupied with the pros and cons of transubstan-
tiation, penance, and fasts. Mankind has never disagreed as to the propri-
ety of robbing, or cheating, or bearing false witness ; but about these dog-
mas, these doctrines, the race has been cutting each other's throats for the
last ten centuries. For the last four centuries these doctrines have dyed
Europe with blood. It is these recollections, these reminiscences, which
have dictated our legislation on this subject. It is these prodigious evils
that American statesmen have striven to avoid. This is the evil which the
trustees believe they see in the application now made, and in behalf of both
Catholics and Protestants, they implore you to reject this- petition. They
have confined themselves, in the instruction given in these schools, to that
which they believe is in conformity with the intentions of the State a secu-
lar education reading and writing, and the rules of arithmetic, with such
instruction on the precepts of the Bible as they did suppose all persons call-
ing themselves Christians could agree iff. If this is wrong, the trustees are
wrong altogether, and something else must be substituted. If a moral edu-
cation is not of itself sufficient if it is not the only proper education for
our free schools, something else must be substituted. The religious, the
doctrinal, the sectarian education, they have hitherto left to the fireside, to
the parents, to the Sunday school. They do not pretend to give it ; they do
not pretend, by the use of the Bible, to teach more than that moral code
which every class of Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, they con-
ceived would unite to give. In these matters it is worth while to look at
the experience of other countries. The same controversy that has arisen
here, has arisen also in Ireland ; but there, in a country torn by religious
schisms and I state a fact well known to the reverend gentleman both
Protestants and Catholics have united in a selection of extracts to be used,
some from our version, some from the Douay Bible. I do not say that this
could be adopted here ; but I do say, there is some neutral ground on which
both parties can meet. I do not pretend that the scheme of the trustees is
wholly unexceptionable ; but I do say, that vastly greater defects must be
discovered in it than have yet been pointed out, to justify its abandonment ;
and. that with all its imperfections on its head, it is a thousandfold better
than what is now proposed as its substitute. As to the other branch of this
double-headed objection, that the books used in the schools are hostile to
Catholics, and promote the Protestant interest : if they are so, they ought
to be expurgated; and if they cannot be satisfactorily expurgated, the
books themselves ought to be abandoned, and their places supplied by oth-
ers. The trustees have viewed this matter in the same light; they have
done all in their power to remove the Catholic objection, so far as it exists.
I regret that the books are not here, that I might convince your honors how
far they have gone to meet what they considered the well-founded remon-

238 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

strances of the Catholics. They have expurgated whole passages of text
from some books, and, in other instances, have pasted two leaves together,
so as to annihilate completely the objectionable passages, until a new edition
can be procured. This has been done, too, notwithstanding the refusal of
the Catholic authorities to give the least aid ; and surely it is not fair, when
this has been done, to insist that these gentlemen were blamable for not
discovering these passages sooner., I repeat, it is not common fairness.

They have offered to make the books unobjectionable to Catholics ; they
have asked the gentlemen who now complain, to lay their fingers on those
passages which are objectionable, and they have promised that they should
be struck out. But all cooperation and assistance has been refused. .

There is one other branch of the question, as regards the conduct of the
School Society, of no little importance. The schools, during the week, are
under the control of the School Society, but on Sundays they have been
used as Sunday schools by such religious societies as would pay for the fuel
and take charge of the building. This privilege has been tendered to the
Catholics. They have been told, " If you will avail yourselves, during the
week-days, of the public schools, you may have the use of the buildings on
Sundays, to give such religious education as you see fit, and you may use
the Douay Bible cr the Missal." Nothing, surely, can be fairer or more
impartial than to place all the sects on an equality during the week, and, on
Sundays, to use them as they choose for religious purposes. There is but
one other branch of the reverend gentleman's remarks to which it will be
necessary to refer ; that is, as to the character of the schools for which a
yharc of the fund is now demanded. The reverend gentleman insists that
tii'.-y will not be sectarian schools. But this must be so; they can be nothing
else, from the nature of the case. The schools are attached to their church-
es ; they are within the sound of the chant, almost within reach of the
altar ; and if sectarian schools are not to be established, what is the object
of their establishment at all ? If the objection to the existing schools is,
that they convey no religious instruction, and these schools are intended to
obviate such objections, what kind of 'education, I beg, will be given ?
What, to be sure, but the teaching of the Catholic faith ? The very ground
the whole foundation of their petition is, that the schools ought to con-
vey religious education ; and do they not, in the schools which they mean
to establish, intend to convey religious instruction ? And you need not be
told by me that it will be a Catholic education a purely Catholic, a secta-
rian education. If you, gentlemen, are prepared to lend your funds and
your authority to such a scheme, you have only to say the word. The trus-
tees of the public schools, and the gentlemen who compose the Public
School Society, hope the result of this application will be such as will bring
the children into the schools. Their object is, that the children shall be
educated. If there is any thing in the objection made as to the character
of the schools or the lessons taught therein, let a committee be appointed
by your honors, from you own body, to investigate the subject. If any well-
founded cause of complaint exists, it will doubtless be removed. But until
it is established by better proof than we have here, that these schools are

SPEECH OF HIKAM KETCHUM. 239

objectionable, and, by better argument than we have this night heard, that
the public funds should be devoted to feed the fires of religious fanaticism,
surely your honors will not abandon these long-established and excellent
institutions.

HIRAM KETcnru, Esq., spoke as follows :

MR. CHAIRMAN : This is an application on the part of the Roman Catho-
lic Church, or of the schools under the direction of the Roman Catholic
Church, to be permitted to participate in the school fund. I desire to say,
this is not a controversy of Catholics with Methodists, or of the Catholics
with the Society of Friends ; the question here is, whether the petitioners
can, upon principles of public policy, be permitted to participate in the
school fund. I may say, in advance, that I don't oppose the petition on
behalf of the Public School Society because the petitioners are Catholics.
"Within the last eighteen years it has been my duty, on behalf of the School
Society, to oppose many petitions for participation in this fund. Petitions
have come from Episcopalian schools ; and those schools have been repre-
sented by a gentleman who is now one of the highest dignitaries in that
Church in this State, and also by able counsel. Petitions have come from
the Dutch Reformed Church, and they have been advocated with great abil-
ity. Petitions have come from the Methodist Church, and have likewise
been advocated with great ability ; and from the Baptist Church, and they
have been advocated with equal ability ; and from the Roman Catholic
Church time and again ; and the prayers of these petitioners, when united
as when separate, have, upon what were deemed sound public principles,
been rejected by your predecessors. Now the petition comes from one soci-
ety alone, and the question is, whether the same principle which excluded
the Episcopalians, which excluded the Methodists, which excluded the
Dutch Reformed Church, which excluded the Baptists, shall not now, as it
has heretofore done, exclude the Roman Catholics also.

Mr. President, I regret that some things have been said on behalf of
these petitioners that have been said. I regret that an attempt should have
been made here to enlist prejudices against the Public School Society, be-
cause it 'is a corporation. The public schools of this city are managed upon
the same principles on which the common schools throughout the State are
conducted ; and if the public schools are wrong, the principles of the com-
mon schools throughout the whole State are equally erroneous ; and it seems
to me that the question is not, whether the public schools are managed by a
corporation or not, but whether, upon principles which have heretofore been
discussed, there can be conceded to Catholics, or any other religious denomi-
nation, that which is now sought. If they be so fortunate as to prove that
the public schools are on a wrong basis, still they have not gained their
point still they have not shown that Catholics, or any other religions
denomination, are entitled to the fund. I may be permitted also to say, I
regret that popular appeals have been made on this subject. I do not object
to the trustees of that association coming here to petition ; but when I read
accounts of popular appeals being made by a high dignitary of that Church

240 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

to the people, to enlist the popular prejudice on this subject, I may be per-
mitted to say that, at least, the course is a novel one. When I read accounts
of the first pastor of that Church when I read of a mitred gentleman being
received by the people with " cheers" when I read that he addressed them,
and was " cheered " on, as we are accustomed to be in our public meetings,
I must say there is something novel in the proceeding. The gentlemen com-
posing this body, I conceive, are capable of reasoning on this subject ; and
it is hardly necessary that a mitred gentleman should descend into the arena,
and appeal to the popular prejudice or passion to influence the judgment of
this board. I am sure, sir, if I and I speak it with all respect if I, or
any other man, had been passing St. James', at the times these meetings
were held, we should have supposed that they were political meetings, and
that possession of the hall was taken by either the " Whigs " or the " Demo-
crats." It seems to me not becoming ; it seems to me that it is not treating
the question in a proper manner, .to make these popular appeals, and then
to come here en masse to ask your honors to grant the prayer of this peti-
tion, at the same time telling you that the Catholics are one fifth of our
population. I care not how numerous they are. I know the Catholics,
when joined by others on a former day, had their petition rejected ; and I
trust, when they come here alone, attended by the populace which they have
excited, they will have no more nor any less conceded to them than is right,
on sound principles of public policy.

There are two principles, or propositions, about which we shall not dis-
agree. The first is, that the Legislature has power to direct that a public
fund shall be provided for the education of every child in the State. There
is no contradiction here of any sound principle. It is no violation of any
sound public principle in the Legislature to enact that out of the public
money raised by tax on all our citizens, every child in the State may be per-
mitted to receive the rudiments of an education. There is one other princi-
ple which is equally in accordance with the well-established public policy
in this State, namely, that not one cent, raised by public taxation, can go to
support a religious institution can go in payment for an education purely
religious in its character. Now let us inquire, for a moment, the reasons on
which these propositions rest. Why is it that the State can tax all the peo-
ple for the education of our children ? Because it is admitted that intelli-
gence is necessary to enable every citizen to discharge his duty to the com-
munity because our institutions rest upon the intelligence and virtue of
the people ; therefore it is right that the State should furnish that intelli-
gence to every member ; and it is no answer for any man, who is called to
pay a tax for that legitimate purpose, to say, " I send my children to schools
where I pay -for their education. I do not wish to avail myself of the pub-
lic fund. My children are educated at this or that classical school. I don't
wish to participate, and therefore I won't pay the tax." This is an answer
that the State would not admit for a moment. And it mi^ht be that the
State adopted some system of education which might not suit all the Lan-
casterian, for instance, as in this city. Now, some may say, " I dislike the
Lancastrian system ; I think it is calculated to impart a superficial educa-

SPEECH OF HIRAM K ETC HUM. 241

tion. I dislike it. I have a deep-rooted objection to that system." But
will the State permit him to say, " I will withhold my tax. 1 cannot pay
my tax, because I have an objection to the system which prevents my chil-
dren participating in the fund ; and therefore I ask the privilege of retain-
ing my portion of the tax " ? Would the State listen to such a plea ? What,
then, is the conclusion ? Why, the State, having the right to educate the
children, and having the right to tax the people for that purpose, must
necessarily adopt some general system it must follow some general rule ;
and whatever my scruples may be, whatever may be the scruples of any
other individual here, or throughout the community, and however oppres-
sive it may be to me, or to others, who cannot avail themselves of the sys-
tem, they must submit. The great end which the State has in view to
impart intelligence to every citizen must be accomplished, and on some-
principle adopted and established by the State itself. Well, what is the
next principle and reason ? We see that no tax can be laid for the support
of religion. Why ? Religion is the foundation of sound morals. That, no
man will deny ; we do not live in an age when any man denies it. Sound
morals are essential to the preservation of the community ; why, therefore,
shall not the city be taxed for that which is essential to her preservation ?
Why shall she not be taxed for laying the foundation on which sound mor-
als and sound political institutions rest ? I will tell you why. We are
divided into different sects, and, if we were taxed for the support of reli-
gion, it would happen it could not be prevented that a man would b:-
taxed for the support of a religion in which he did not believe, and which
he regarded as injurious. I should be taxed to support the Jewish religion :
Dr. Brownlee would be taxed to support the Catholic religion, and the rev-
erend gentleman who has addressed you here to-night would be taxed to
support Dr. Brownlee's religion. And would they pay the tax ? No ; for
it would be a violation of conscience. And you would then see the time
arrive, if an attempt were made to collect such a tax, when men would
march to the stake, as in years gone by. Right or wrong, you would see
many Protestants go to the stake, before they would let a single dollar of
their money go to teach the right reverend gentleman's religion. So, on the
other hand, you would see thousands of Catholics suffer martyrdom, before
they would contribute to a fund whereby they might, by chance, be contrib-
uting to the teaching of heresy. This is the reason why we cannot have a
general tax for the support of religion. But again, we believe that religion
is essential to sound morals. There is no gentleman here who will deny that
the Christian religion is the great conservative principle of the community.
And how is that best promoted and advanced ? By being let alone ; by
giving every denomination a fair chance ; by leaving religion to voluntary
support. It is best for religion itself that it should be let alone to extend
its own boundaries. Now, then, Mr. Chairman, to me it is most manifest
that this community is bound to furnish the rudiments of a common educa-
tion. The State is bound to do this, and to do it by some public system
by some ordinance, or by some law ; the State is bound to make provision
for furnishing this education. I do not say I will not pretend to say that
16

242 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the State has a right to take the children from the arms of their mothers. I
do not mean to say that the State has a right to force education on any
body. That is not the principle. But I mean to say that the State ought
to furnish a system which shall be open and acceptable to all. It ought to
furnish bread, and say, Come and eat. I do not mean to inflict pains and
penalties ; I should think they would be hardly necessary. Let us go forth
with persuasion. I am fqr using no force but the force of strong argument.
Well, now, sir, if it is the duty of the State to furnish an education for the
poor, and for all the children in the community, or for all that will avail
themselves qf it, the State must establish some system ; and there is a sys-
tem established in the city of New York upon what we supposed to be pub-
lic principles common schools in the common acceptation of that term.

Mr. Chairman, the idea that we are bound in our common schools to
teach religion is a perfectly novel idea to an American mind. Who ever
went to a common school to be taught religion ? I am in the midst of
Americans who have received their education in the common schools of this
country, and I ask who ever went to a common school to receive religious
instruction '{ I venture to say that the idea is perfectly novel. But do we
mean to say that because no religion is taught in these schools, that they are
irreligious? Far otherwise. Now the reverend gentleman has said with
all his professions of kindness he has said, that religion is below par in the
public schools ; at an immense discount. Now, is it so ? He argues inge-
niously, that if they are not taught the doctrines of some known sect, there
is no religion. ' Why, sir, we have been taught sound morals in all our
schools. I do not know any school in which they have not been taught. I
i to not know a mechanics' shop where the young American or Irishman goes
to be instructed in the trade of a cabinet-maker or blacksmith, where he is
not bound to be of sound morals. This obligation prevails everywhere it
is a thing which every body acknowledges. We are bound to teach it.
" Thou shalt not lie ; thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not bear false witness,"
are precepts which we teach in our schools. Who ever heard to the con-
trary ? And if we are bound to teach them, we are at liberty to teach those
general religious truths which give them sanction. I should like to know
where there is a school in which the master is not at liberty to say, God's
eye sees all you do ; and if you steal, or lie, the retribution of eternal judg-
ment will follow you. This is not teaching religion. This is morality, and
an invoking of the common sanctions of tiiat morality. Sir, it has been
uaid of these schools that they do not teach this. Why, if the gentlemen
had visited the schools and I am afraid they have not they would have
aeon, if their eyes had been properly directed, mottoes of this kind : " God
sees and knows all our thoughts, words, and actions." "God sees all we
do ; He hears all we say ; He knows all we do." " Son, reverence thy
parent." And yet, gentlemen, we don't teach religion ; we don't teach pur-
gatory ; we don't teach baptism or no baptism ; we don't teach any thing
that is disputed among Christians. We have no right to do so : but we
have the right to declare moral truths, and this community gives us that
right not the law, but, as my friend says, public sentiment.

SPEECH OF HIRAM KETCHUM. 243

And is there no common principle in which all agree ? Is there not a
principle to which all religious men refer ? And have not we the right,
thus far, to teach the sanctions of morality in these schools ? And because
we teach the principles which every body acknowledges, and no man dis-
putes which give offence to nobody, and ought not are we to be told that
these are religious schools ? Why, in our common schools we have all been
taught the common truths of religion, and yet no one ever went there to re-
ceive religious education.

Mr. Chairman, while in these common, established schools, we give the
rudiments of an ordinary education while we teach there to write and
cypher, and read the newspaper, and discharge the duties of citizens while
this is done, there is another department in which religion is taught. We
all know it we all feel it ; and while the Legislature can go to any extent
to advance man in one department, that of common elementary learning,
there is another, which is left to religion, where the pastor takes the chil-
dren, where the Christian parent takes the children, where the benevolent
Christian takes the children to his Sunday-school, or elsewhere, and brings
them under the influence of religion. This department is supplied by vol-
untary contribution, and not one dollar can be paid by public tax. Now I
do maintain, sir, that I speak of a line so clear, so broad, that every man
who hears me, who has had the good fortune to receive an education in this
country, will understand it ; a broad, clear, and distinct line between secular
and religious education. One is received under the influence of a religious
teacher ; that religious teacher gets his pay by the voluntary contribution of
willing hearts ; he dares not get it anywhere else ; he does not want to get
it in any other way. The other can draw on the State for any amount that
the people, in their sovereign capacity, may determine.

We thus undertake in these public schools to furnish this secular educa-
tion, embracing, as it does, not solely and exclusively the common rudiments
of learning, but also a knowledge of good morals, and those common sanc-
tions of religion which are acknowledged by every body.. We have estab-
lished such a system, and the question is, whether that system shall be de-
stroyed and a new one established. That is the question. This system is
known and understood ; it has spread its schools all over our city ; it is
under one government ; children removing from one ward to another find in
each the same schools, are accommodated with the same books, meet with,
and are instructed under the same uniform system. Now shall it be con-
tinued or not ? Mr. Chairman, if the prayer of this petition be granted, it
must be abandoned. I can show you this in a few minutes. Does the rever-
end gentleman suppose that he alone would be permitted to take this fund ?
Does he imagine that the various Protestant denominations will stand by.
and look on, and see him draw ten, twelve, or fourteen dollars a child, for
its education, and the making it for it would be so ; that would be the
result after all not only a fair scholar, but a good Catholic ? Does he sup-
pose he is going to have that business to himself, and that other reverend
gentlemen are going to stand by, and build up no schools ? It will not be
as in former years, as the reverend gentleman conjectures ; for then the

J44 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

bounty of the State was small, then only two dollars a head, or something
of that sort, could be drawn, and the Lancasterian system was not intro-
duced ; then there was no inducement offered to the religious bodies ; but
with this large bounty the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Baptists,
and our friends, the Methodists, who are, it seems, such naughty people,
will have their schools ; and they will have them well filled, too ; and not
only filled with the children of their own disciples, but they will have an
inducement to bring in others, because the more they draw in, the more
money they will draw, and the consequence will be that the system of pub-
lic schools will be broken up. Now, the consideration which I wish to
bring to your mind is, whether the new system will be as good or better
than the old. It is the common-sense way of acting, not to desert that
which has done well, that which has done good service, unless we see that
we are going to improve by the change. What is the charge brought
against this system of public school instruction ? What is the charge ?
What is the objection ? What is the system established for ? It is to fur-
nish a good, common, ordinary literary education a good literary and sci-
entific education to instruct our children in the rudiments of literature and
science. Now there is no charge and I want this body to look at this paper
in reference to that there is no charge against the School Society that it
has not performed that duty that it has not given what it was bound to
give the rudiments of a good literary education that it has not enabled
the children to read, and write, and cypher, and furnished them with the
elements of geography, so as to fit them to go forth, and discharge their
duties as intelligent citizens. There is no charge against the Society that it
has not performed this. What, then, is it ? Why, it is this : that the
Catholics, from conscientious scruples, cannot come in and participate in the
advantages of the system. Their consciences forbid them to have their chil-
dren educated in these schools. Now, Mr. Chairman, there is no man, I
apprehend, that can have a higher respect for the rights of conscience, than
he who now addresses you ; but let us examine this matter, and with all
respect for those whose claim we now discuss, I fairly and candidly ask, Can
a Roman Catholic have conscientious scruples against my learning his son to
read, to write, to cypher, and the common elements of geography ? Can it
be ? Is it possible ? Take a fair intelligent Protestant, and is it possible
that any Roman Catholic could object to that man instructing his children
to read, write, and cypher ? Why, no ; you might just as well say he has
conscientious scruples against such a man learning his son " the art, trade,
and mystery " of cabinet-making in a Protestant shop. You may just as
well say that he has conscientious scruples against placing his son in the
office of a Protestant lawyer to study law. Why, is it so in fact ? Go into
your fashionable schools, and I ask you if there arc not there as many Cath-
olics, as of other sects ? I think I have in my eye those, among the peti-
tioners themselves, who send their children to Madame this or that, who is
a Protestant ; and there are many Protestants here who send their children
to the schools of Catholics ; and in doing this, they consider themselves as
compromising nothing, for there is no religion taught there. These con-

SPEECH OF HIRAM KETCHUM. 245

siderations, which so press on the minds of these conscientious petitioners
for the hardship endured by the parents who send their children to public
schools now, are not appreciated in their own case when they send their
sons to Columbia College, or to the schools of Protestant Mrs. Smith, or
some other lady. Well, now, Mr. Chairman, if there be no conscientious
scruples at all against employing Protestants to teach their children to read
and write and cypher, on what can their conscientious scruples rest? It
has been said (but I will not read the passage, because the commonly under-
stood meaning of it has been disavowed) that the children that go to these
schools do not reverence their parents, and that they feel a contempt for
them, as though a special influence had been used by which they were led to
do this. Now I supposed, until it was disclaimed so explicitly, that this
had an application to the gentlemen of the Society of Friends. But the
reverend gentleman has disavowed it ; and he ought to do so, for I can tell
that gentleman that the Friends never, perhaps in a single instance, sent or
permitted children of theirs to go to these schools. They educate their own
poor, and they ask the State for no participation. They do not send their
children there, and I venture to affirm that, of the numerous children that
go to those schools, not one attends the public ordinances of religion ac-
cording to the mode established by the Society of Friends. And I will go
farther and say, of those who are educated there, none are converted to
their faith. Whatever may be intended here or elsewhere, it may be assert-
ed, with perfect confidence, that those individuals make no proselytes ; and
also it may be said, that they have kept their people from being teachers,
fearing such accusations as are made against them by the reverend gentle-
man.

And, Mr. President, if it is alleged and I understand it now to be dis-
claimed that the course of education begets irreverence to parents, I can
only say they who affirm it speak of that which they do not understand.

If they had gone to these schools, they would have seen what care is
taken, what sound moral principles are inculcated, and they would then
never have made this charge. But it is now disclaimed, and it is not for
that reason, then, that they have conscientious scruples. But what else is
there ? It is affirmed that some of these books contain passages reflecting
on Catholics. Now I submit to the candor of the gentleman, and of every
one that hears me because the books, containing numerous extracts from
numerous authors, collected together for the use of these schools, contain a
few passages which I may conceive reflect on me, or on my religion, or on
my politics ; is that a good reason why I should have conscientious scruples
and objections against the entire system ? Let us see where it would lead.
Here is the Catholic, in turning over perhaps a thousand pages, finds some
fifty lines that reflect on his religion. I venture to say the Calvinists, on
turning over those pages, would find something reflecting on them. I have
not made the experiment, but I have no doubt that would be the result.
Then comes the high churchman, and if he does not find something there
bearing on his peculiarities, I am mistaken. Then there are the Methodists,
and if they do not find something there bearing on what people call their

246 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

fanaticism, it is extraordinary. Then there is the politician, aud there may
be something extracted from Jefferson used in these schools, and to this a
certain class of politicians may say, I cannot have my children taught Jeffer-
sonianism. Well, then, there is my particular, worthy friend, Daniel Web-
ster, -who may have contributed something to the pages of these books, aud
a Democrat, who takes up the books, may say, I cannot go Webster any
how ; 1 must have that expurgated. Now if all men must go on iu this
way, and conscientiously object to the system because in the reading-lessons
they find some passages against their religious or political opinions, the
whole of the books will be expunged. I do not mean to reflect on the con-
scientious scruples of any man, but I ask if we are not bound to take hold
of this system in a fair and candid manner. We must have a public system ;
and it is impossible to have a public system to which some man may not
have scruples and objections. Well, sir, but what next ? Why, the Bible.
I believe a chapter from the Bible, the Protestant translation, without note
or comment, is read in some of these schools at their opening every day.
Shall we give up this Bible, Mr. President ? It would be a very hard thing.
I have no authority to say how far the trustees can go, or will go, in a spirit
of compromise, with an earnest desire to get in these children, but I am
here to say that it will be a great sacrifice to give up the Bible to give up
that translated Bible containing, as we believe, and as I doubt not, a great
part of Christendom believes, not only a fair translation, but a vast fund of
pure English. It will be hard to give up that Bible, sir. It has furnished
consolation in life, and hope in death, to many. The institutions of liberty
and the altars of piety have sprung up in the path of that translated Bible ;
and wherever that translated Bible has gone, popular institutions have risen.
All those glorious principles, which here in this country are so conspicuous,
have come from that Bible ; and wherever that translated Bible has been
kept from the hands of the laity, there has been darkness and despotism.

We, sir, have a Declaration of Independence of which we are proud,
because it contains those great principles of liberty which are found in the
Bible. Yes, sir, there lies beyond that Declaration of Independence a book
whose principles are a declaration of independence to man ; and wherever
that book is read, man finds out his rights, and is willing to assert them.

Mr. President and gentlemen of the board, it is in your hands. It is at
present in the hands of these trustees, but it is a very delicate trust. We
are called upon to give up that Bible. I am not the man to say that it can
lx) done, and I believe, if this is necessary to a compromise, we shall have to
say, " No compromise." We cannot give up that Bible from our own hands,
and the hands of the children of this republic. Mr. Chairman, we must go
a little farther. Suppose we did now give up the Bible, and make a com-
mon selection from the two translations the Catholic and our own ; sup-
pose we made a common selection about which we all agree. Why, gentle-
men, such a compromise was made across the water ; that compromise was
agreed to by a majority of the Irish Catholic bishops, but the minority
appealed to the pope. Now the gentleman is mistaken if he supposes I am
capable of appealing to any prejudices improperly, but he has not denied

SPEECH OF HIRAM KETCHUM. 247

this fact ; and I expected it would have been denied, or somehow explained,
how such an appeal was made from that country. Sir, such an appeal might
be made in this country ; and if so, in all candor I ask, whether it does not
belong to a foreign potentate to say whether the Bible shall be read in our
common schools ? I ask if they can escape from that position ? I want an
answer to that question. And if there be a foreign power, spiritual or other-
wise, to say that the Bible shall not be read, I ask if that power may not
say that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence shall not be
read ? I mean no reflection. This matter has come out in evidence here,
and I draw from it what may be supposed to be legitimate conclusions.
The gentlemen opposite may smile, but I ask if they can escape from these
conclusions ? I know there are many of the Catholic laity who are Ameri-
cans by birth, and many by adoption, who would settle that question very
soon. Though the mitre may be placed by a foreign power on the head of
him that wears it, I know there is a feeling in the American bosom bo it
CathoKc or Protestant that will not allow a foreign potentate, either direct-
ly or indirectly, to interfere. Now, Mr. President, I have got through all 1
propose to say on this subject, and again I put it to you, Shall we not have
the privilege to learn our little fellow-citizens to read and write and cipher,
and to teach them the common elements of geography and history ? Shall
we be prevented by a conscientious scruple ? Mr. Chairman, I feel a strong
desire that both Protestants and Catholics should be brought into the same
schools, and I see in such a circumstance, great and wholesome and bene-
ficial political results. "When a stranger comes here from a foreign land,
where he has been oppressed, I am willing to grant him an asylum, and to
say that he shall have all the benefits of this land, and of our Constitution ;
and that if he has been oppressed, that he has come to a country where he
shall be oppressed no more. All I ask is, that he shall give America his
heart. If he comes with an Irish heart, let it become an American heart ;
let him stand by America, and by her children, enjoying the same rights as
they enjoy, and growing up with them, amalgamate with them, and inter-
changing the same kind and benevolent feelings together. That is what I
want. I want to see the country from which he came second in his regard
to the land of his adoption, to the land of his children ; and I want those
children so brought up, that, when they become men, they shall have pure
American feelings. I hope, sir, they will not be taught that we entertain
the same feeling here that Orangemen and Protestants entertain in Ireland.
We are not unfriendly to them ; our children are not their enemies ; let us,
then, grow up and amalgamate together. I dislike any system that would
cast off from American ground these children of foreign countries ; and I
ask the gentlemen if they cannot come in and place their children side by
side with ours, and let them feel that in the schools there are no partialities,
and that out of them they may go to their own Church and bow before theii
own altar ? But for civil purposes, let all be brought up together.

Mr. Chairman, there is another very plausible argument presented here.
They tell you, in their memorial, that they will engage to give as good an
ordinary secular education as the public schools can give for the same

24S THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

money. They propose to allow their schools to be visited by the public
authorities, or by the trustees themselves, and to place them under some
general supervision. Now, there are two ways of insuring the fidelity of
trustees, in directing the object of a public trust toward the end designed ;
one is, by supervision, and the other is, by so creating the trust as to insure,
by its organization, the requisite fidelity. The latter I prefer. Here is a
religious society whose paramount purpose is religious instruction ; if to
that be superadded a literary education, it will be subordinate to the other,
as it ought ; its constant tendency will be, to neglect the literary education
for the purpose of promoting the other, and therefore the object of the
Legislature will most likely be neglected.

But here is the Public School Society, created for one single purpose, and
that is, education. For that it is organized, and to that end all its opera-
tions tend. But if -it had two objects in view, the paramount one would be
that which would receive its chief attention ; the other and subordinate one
would receive less. If you entrust this business of education to a religious
society, religion will be paramount, and literature will be subordinate. Let
that subordinate one be paid for by the State, and it would be in their case
if they had no other object. But, gentlemen, the question is, Will you
desert the Public School Society, and take up this new society ? It has
been said that the Public School Society is a monopoly. In the country,
the trustees are chosen by the people ; but in this city, owing to its peculiar
organization, the matter is left to the superintendence of benevolent individ-
uals, who are voluntary agents. They receive no compensation for their
services, and experience has shown that the duties have been better dis-
charged by that system than by any other. You may go to the schools in
the State and examine the most favorable ones ; then visit the schools in
this city, and the education in our schools will be found superior to that in
the common schools elsewhere.

This Society is called a corporation ; but it is a corporation which is
bound by law to report all its proceedings every year to this Council, and, at
stated times, to the Legislature. It is a corporation of which the members
of this board are ex-officio members. It is a corporation which has control
of a great fund, and it has for its end the good of the State ; but it is will-
ing that its real estate shall be transferred to this Corporation whenever the
public good requires it, and to this end an offer has long since been made,
and is now repeated. But if we are to have this common school system of
education, I ask, if it is not better to have it under the supervision of men
of business and of high character, who are willing to devote their leisure to
its interests ? I wish to call your attention to another subject. This fund is
a large one ; $73,000 is from the State and compulsory taxation. In the
country, as explained by my associate, a certain sum is granted by the State,
on condition that an equal sum is added to the school fund, by a tax laid
on the people themselves who receive it. But, independent of that, our
citizens came and asked to be taxed something more, and that amount is
more than the other two. But it must be recollected, when this request to
be permitted to tax themselves still farther was made, it was settled and

SPEECH OF HIRAM KETCIITJM. 249

determined that the churches should be excluded. When that was settled,
and the schools were mainly under the supervision of the Common School
Society, that Society got up petitions for this additional taxation ; and
because confidence was placed in that Society, the taxation was not opposed.
Now, if we revert back to the common school system, this must come back
too ; for I affirm, that the chief consideration which induced the petitioners
and they were men of great property among them to sign the petition
asking to be taxed for the purposes of education, was, that the School Soci-
ety was to have the superintendence. The sum of $73,000 was thus raised,
because confidence was reposed in the School Society, as antagonistic of
those church societies.

Now, perhaps, the gentleman may ask, if the system is to be changed,
that we should resort to the same course as is pursued in the country, where
the people elect their own commissioners and trustees. But if we do, the
schools must be governed on the same principles as these, and the only dif-
ference will be in the managers. And if it is to come to that, I am sure
these trustees will be very willing ; for it is to them a source of* great vexa-
tion to be compelled to carry on this controversy for such a period.

They are very unwilling to come here to meet their fellow-citizens in a
somewhat hostile manner. They have nothing to gain, for the Society is
no benefit to them; and they give days and weeks of their time, without
recompense, to the discharge of the duties of their trust. They have noth-
ing to gain, but they have arduous duties to discharge. Nor have they any
thing to conceal. They report every thing to this Common Council, and
therefore the public know all they do ; and if they are not found faithful to
the trust if, in the solemn judgment of this corporation, they do not answer
the end proposed, elect others in their place ; and if the prayer of this peti-
tion be granted, it will be equivalent to their arraignment. I know not that
I can add any thing more to my argument. It has been my fortune, during
the last eighteen years, from time to time to argue this question before other
boards, who came to a unanimous decision ; and at the very time when the
question was referred to the Legislature, the petitioners were supported by a
reverend gentleman of the highest respectability of that day, and by lay
gentlemen of great talent. We had the discussion here until eleven and
twelve o'clock at night, and the gentlemen of the Common Council men
of great respectability denied the prayer of the petition, and the public
sustained them in their decision. Our Roman Catholic friends come now
with the same principle that was decided then, and I hope, sir, the prayer
of the petitioners will not be granted.

The Rev. Dr. BOND then appeared as the representative of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, but he gave way to the Right
Rev. Bishop HUGHES, who desired to make a brief reply to the
two legal gentlemen who had addressed the board. He said :

I have a few remarks that I wish to make, partly in reference to myself
and partly to my principles, and the views submitted with regard to those

250 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

principles ; but the debate has taken a range too wide and too legal for me
to pretend to follow it throughout. I am not accustomed to the niceties of
legislation, or the manner of interpreting statutes or acts of the Legislature;
but, to sum up the whole of the two eloquent addresses made by the gentle-
men who have just spoken, they amount to this : that either the consciences
of Catholics must be crushed, and their objections resisted, or the Public
School System must be destroyed. That is the pith of both their observa-
tions. They argue that there must be either one or the other of these two
results, and those gentlemen are inclined to the course of compelling con-
science to give way, they being the judge of our consciences, which they
wish to overrule ; so that the Public School Society and I do not desire to
detract from it as far as good intentions are concerned shall continue to
dispose of the public school fund, notwithstanding our objections and the
reasoning on which they are based. The gentleman who last spoke appeared
to imagine that I wished the exclusion of the Protestant Bible, and that, for
the benefit of Catholics, I laid myself open to the charge of enmity to the
Word of God ; but I desired nothing of the sort. I would leave the Protes-
tant Bible for those that reverence it ; but, for myself, it has not my confi-
dence. Another objection "which he made was of a personal character to
myself; but while that gentleman started with the beautiful rule of charity
to others, and with a lecture on the propriety of retaining our station in life,
and the impropriety of the public appeals of which he was pleased to
speak, I regret that his practice was not in accordance with his precept ; and
that, while he was lecturing me on the subject, he himself should have gone
beyond any thing which proper discussion called for. If I attended those
meetings, it was because I felt the evil of the present system as regards us
not its evil as regards others ; and we must be permitted to be the judge of
our own duties, and to see for ourselves, while we accord to others the same
right for themselves. I beg to disclaim any intention to overrule this com-
munity, or to bring any thing from Rome, except to those who believe in its
spiritual authority. Consequently, all those remarks of that gentleman have
been out of place ; and for the rest I conceive the true point has not been
touched. Not one of our objections or scruples of conscience has he under-
taken to analyze, nor the grounds on which they exist. When I gave those
reasons for our objections, I thought some argument would have been urged
fairly against them, but the only end the gentleman appears to have in view,
is the preservation of the School Society, and to maintain that they have a
patent right* to the office. That I know is his object ; but I did not expect
to hear any man construing the law as that its advantages cannot reach us
unless we lay down and sacrifice our consciences at the threshold. I have
spoken for myself, and I have disclaimed all high-handed objects ; but the
gentleman insists, notwithstanding the pledge which we have given, that, in
spite of all, we shall teach our religion. I disclaim such intentions, and I
do. not think it fair in that gentleman to impute intentions which we dis-
claim. The gentleman has drawn a beautiful picture of society, if all could
live in harmony (I would it could be reduced to practice), whether born in
foreign parts or in this country. But if all could be brought up together

SPEECH OF RT. KEV. BISHOP HUGHES. 251

if all could associate in such a state without prejudice to the public welfare,
while the Protestants use such books as those to which we object, it could
only be by the Catholic concealing his religion ; for, if he owns it, he will
be called a " papist." The gentleman says that one of the books to which
we object is not a text-book used in the schools ; but, if not, it is one of the
books placed in the library to which I do not say we contribute more than
others, but it is supported at the public expense, to which Catholics con-
tribute as well as others. I will read you one passage, and leave you to
judge for yourselves what will be its effects on the minds of our children.
The work is entitled " The Irish Heart," and the author, at p. 24, is describ-
ing an Irish Catholic, and he says : " As for Phelim Maghee, he was of no
particular religion."

And how the gentlemen describe the public schools, but as schools of
religion and no religion. They say they give religious instruction ; but
again they say, it is not religion, for it does not vitiate their claim.

As for old Phelim Maghee, he. was of no particular religion.

When Pbelim had laid up a good stock of sins, he now and then went
over to Killarney, of a Sabbath morning, and got "relaaf by confining them
out o' the way," as he used to express it, and sealed up his soul with a
icnfer.

That is the term they apply to our doctrine of transubstantiation ; and
they want us to associate and to enjoy every thing in harmony, when they
assail our religious right.

and returned quite invigorated for the perpetration of new offences.

Now, suppose Catholic children hear this in the company of their Prot-
estant associates ! They will be subject to the ridicule of their companions,
and the consequence will be, that their domestic and religious attachments
will become weakened ; they will become ashamed of their religion, and
they will grow up Nothingarians.

But again, on p. 120, when speaking of intemperance, we find the fol-
lowing :

It is more probable, however, a part of the papal system.

And this, notwithstanding all that Father Matthew has done.

For when drunkenness shall have been done away, and, with it, that just
relative proportion of all indolence, ignorance, crime, misery, and supersti-
tion, of which it is the putative parent, then truly a much smaller portion
of mankind may be expected to follow the dark lantern of the Romish
religion.

That religion is most likely to find professors among the frivolous and
the wicked, which, by a species of ecclesiastical legerdemain, can persuade
the sinner that he is going to heaven, .when he is going directly to hell. By
a refined and complicated system of Jesuitry and prelatical juggling, the
papal see has obtained its present extensive influence through the world.

And, unless, we send our children to imbibe these lessons, we are going
to overturn the system ! But is that the true conclusion to which the gen-
tleman should come from our petition ? Is that reasoning from facts and
the evidence before their eyes ? I have promised not to detain the board,

252 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

and therefore I would merely say, if I have attended those meetings, it was
not with the views the gentleman has imputed to me, nor to distinguish
myself, as has been insinuated. I have taken good care to banish politics
from those meetings ; and if I have mentioned the number of Catholics, or
of their children, it was to show how far this system falls short of the end
which the Legislature had in view. I disclaim utterly and entirely the
intention imputed to me by the gentleman. But I will no longer detain the
board.

Mr. MOTT, one of the Public School Trustees, with the per-
mission of the board, explained the manner in which the book
which the right reverend prelate had last alluded to had found
its way into the schools. It was one of a series of tales pub-
lished by the Temperance Society ; and when a committee was
appointed for filling the library, their attention was called to the
first number of the series. They read two or three of them
which had come from the press, and, as they appeared to be
adapted to the reading of children, the committee admitted
them, and by some mistake it was supposed that all the other
volumes of the same series, and under the same title, were
ordered too, and they were sent in as they issued from the press
after that period, and in this way the book in question had crept
in. But this being discovered by a Catholic trustee, it was with-
drawn, and of this the gentlemen were fully apprised, and there-
fore lie asked if it was generous or just to quote that book, under
these circumstances, to strengthen the cause of the Catholics.

The Right Rev. Bishop HUGHES assured the gentleman that
he, until that moment, had not heard of the books having been
withdrawn.

The Rev*. Dr. BOND then again rose to address the board, as
the representative of the Methodist Episcopal Church ; but as
at was now 10 o'clock, it was proposed by one of the aldermen
to take a recess until Friday afternoon, at 4 o'clock, which was
agreed to, and the board adjourned.

SECOND DAT.

The board reassembled at 4 o'clock on Friday, the 30th of
October, by adjournment from the previous day, but some time
elapsed before the debate could be resumed, in consequence of
the difficulty which the gentlemen who took part in the proceed-
ings, found in gaining an entrance to the Council Chamber,

SPEECH OF KEY. DB. BOND. 253

through the greatly increased crowd of persons who were anx-
ious and struggling to be present. After the room had been
tilled to overflowing, many hundreds were still excluded who
desired admission ; but the room was filled to its utmost capaci-
ty, even to standing room in the windows, and those still crowd-
ing round the entrance-door were obliged to endure the disap-
pointment. DAVID GRAHAM, Esq., Alderman of the Fifteenth
Ward, presided on this occasion as the locum tenens of the Presi-
dent, Mr. Alderman Purdy, who, however, was present, seated
with the aldermen. There were also present many distin-
guished and reverend gentlemen of various denominations of
this city, besides those who took part in the discussion. Dr.
Brownlee was seated near Dr. Bond during that gentleman's
speech, but he did not attempt to address the board.

The Kev. Dr. Pise, and other reverend gentlemen of the
Catholic Church, were seated with the Right Rev. Bishop
Hughes and the Very Rev. Dr. Power, and many preachers of
the Methodist Episcopal Church were in the vicinity of the ora-
tor by whom they were represented.

When all the gentlemen were seated, the President called
upon the Rev. Dr. Bond, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to
proceed with the debate on behalf of the remonstrants of that
body.

The Rev. Dr. BOND spoke as follows :

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OP THE COMMON COUNCIL : It may be
necessary here, in the outset, that I should, on the part of those that I rep-
resent, disclaim all hostility to our fellow-citizens who have made their
claim to this Council. To them we have no hostility nay, we have no
prejudice against them as a body ; and of any hostility that may be found
in the memorial which we have presented to this body, the address of the
right reverend gentleman who opened this discussion last night will furnish
us with a thorough explanation ; for, when he adverted to that part of his
memorial which related to the Society of Friends, he wished it to be ex-
pressly understood that he spoke of their creed, apart from themselves.
Now, this is the explanation we wish to make of our memorial which we
have presented to this Council. We speak of the creed of the Roman Cath-
olic Church apart from the Roman Catholics themselves. We are bound,
not only by the obligations of social life, but by our common Christianity,
to extend to them all the benevolence which we think ought to be exercised
toward any other portion of our fellow-citizens. It may be asked why we
adverted to their creed at all. Because it was wholly unavoidable. We
could not do otherwise, because it was on its peculiarities that they rested

254 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

their claim to a portion of this fund ; it was on their peculiar creed that
tftey rested their scruples against sending their children to the public
schools. We could, therefore, no otherwise resist their claim but by advert-
ing to those peculiarities. And it is complained that we adverted to them
with too little respect. Now, sir, we must be allowed to say, that whatever
there is of disrespect to our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens in this memorial,
they must allow something for the provocation. Sir, we had esteemed the
public schools a common benefit, and we had made sacrifices to the system.
. We, too, should have been glad if we could have educated our children in
our own way, and in our sectarian tenets, or prejudices, if you will ; but
when we found the Legislature providing an education that should be uni-
versal, we brought all our sectarian feelings, and placed them on the altar
of the public welfare. And when we found the public schools, which we
esteemed so great a good, 'about to be destroyed by the sectarian prejudices
of another denomination, we were alarmed, and we stated in our memorial
that we were alarmed. And was there no cause for alarm ? Why, the pub-
lic gatherings which were so feelingly alluded to last night were cause of
alarm. Was there not cause for alarm, when, at a time of general excite-
ment and political strife, there were these gatherings of the Catholics ?
And was there not cause to fear that their object was to wrest from the
Common Council by intimidation, what they had failed to obtain by reason
and argument ? Such were our fears ; but really, sir, the complaint of want
of respect in our memorial is wholly out of place. Why, the gentleman
reminds me of a man who, while deliberately skinning a living eel, cursed
the "varmint" because it would not hold still. Why, sir, this skinning is
it serious matter. I hope, however, that we shall be allowed the apology
which the right reverend gentleman made for himself and for those asso-
ciated with him, when speaking of the Society of Friends and their
creed

The Eight Rev. Bishop HUGHES interposed, and said he had
not spoken of the creed of either the Society of Friends or of
the Methodists. He did not suppose this body was sitting in
judgment on creeds.

The Rev. Dr. BOND continued :

I admit that, when the reverend gentleman spoke of the Society of
Friends, he did not speak of them by name. Well, but the right reverend
gentleman says and he contends it has an important bearing on this mat-
ter that we have made a false issue ; that we charge that the applicants
require a portion of this public money for sectarian purposes ; and this, lie
says, ia "a false issue." If this be true, it will have an important bearing
on the question. But we affirm that it is not a false issue : it is the true
issue ; there can be no other issue. It will be remembered, sir, that we have
only now to justify what we have alleged in our memorial. We are not
going into the merits of the legal part of the question, for we are not of the
legal profession ; and, after what we have heard from the legal gentlemen in

SPEECH OF REV. DE.' BOND. 255

this discussion, it cannot be expected. But we do affirm that the issue we,
in common with the Trustees of the Public School Society, plead that this
money is applied for for sectarian purposes is the true issue. How do we
prove it ? It has been one leading objection to the public schools, that no
religion is taught in them. Well, it is also alleged that no religion can be
taught there, unless we teach sectarianism. Now, if it be complained, on
the part of our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, that no religion is taught in
these schools, surely they don't mean to keep schools in which they will
teach no religion. We take them to be honest in what they say, and I hope
that is not " a false issue." They allege that no religion is taught, and
that none can be taught without teaching sectarianism. Now we take it for
granted that they will not keep schools in which no religion is taught ; or
why do they object to the public schools ? And if they teach religion, it
must be sectarianism, for they themselves allege that no religion can be
taught without teaching sectarianism ; and if so. then will not the public
money be used for sectarian purposes ? There is only one way to escape
from this position. What claim may be set up here, I know not ; but else-
where it is alleged that they teach the Roman Catholic religion, and that is
not sectarianism, inasmuch as it is the only true religion.

This may be a salvo for them, but it is not for us. They will not expect
that other denominations will admit that the Roman Catholic is the only
true religion, and that it is not sectarianism. But if they do, and if they
still say that theirs is the only true Church ; and if they, only a branch of
the common stock, only one of the many sects of our common Christianity,
teach Catholicism there, they teach sectarianism as much as Methodists
would do if they had one of these schools an which they taught Methodism.
And if they teach Catholic sectarianism to their children, will not the
money they claim, if allowed, be applied to sectarian purposes ? This is all
we said, sir ; and is this " a false issue " ? We say it is the true issue ;
there can be no other issue, for there can be no possible objection to this
conclusion. So much for " the issue," sir.

But it was complained, sir, that we have said the arguments by which
their application on a former occasion was resisted, were "clear, cogent, and
unanswerable." We grant that this is a matter of opinion. We say, when
we read them in the memorial of the trustees of the public schools, we
thought them clear, cogent, and conclusive ; but we accord to the gentle-
man the right to form his own opinion ; and can he complain if we claim
the same privilege which we accord to him ? But it was complained that
we had alleged that " neither the Constitution of the State nor the public
welfare are to be regarded, when they stand in the way of Roman Catholic
sectarianism and exclusiveness." Why, is it not on the ground of sectarian
exclusiveness that they make this claim ? I take it for granted that, if they
cannot conscientiously send their children to the public schools, their con-
scientious objection is founded on their creed. There is something of pecu-
liarity in their creed, for they alone, of all the denominations, have scruples
on this subject ; and we did not then intend to give offence by the term
" sectarian exclusiveness." But again, it is complained that we alleged that

256 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

" it must be manifest to the Common Council, that, if the Roman Catholic
claims are granted, all the other Christian denominations will urge their
claims for a similar appropriation, and that the money raised for education
by a general tax will be solely applied to the purposes of proselytism,
through the medium of sectarian schools." And can any thing be clearer ?
Indeed, the gentleman does not take particular exception to this. " That
the money raised for education by a general tax will be solely applied to the
purposes of proselytism ! " Why, if they a,re honest in their prejudices for
their form of worship, and if they believe their own religion the best, they
will endeavor to impart their own views, and all the principles which they
advocate, to those they take under their own care. And what is this but
proselytism ? The word is not used offensively, for we only mean, by mak-
ing proselytes, the making converts to their own faith. But we had said,
" If this were done, would it be the price of peace ? or would it not throw
the apple of discord into the whole Christian community ? Should we agree
in the division of the spoils ? "Would each sect be satisfied with the portion
allotted to it ? " Is there any thing offensive in this question ? Might we
not honestly differ respecting the amount appropriated to us severally ?

We venture to say, that the sturdy claimants who now beset the Council
would not be satisfied with much less than the lion's share ; and we are sure
that there are other Protestant denominations besides ourselves who would
not patiently submit to the exaction.

And this has been spoken of, sir, by the right reverend gentleman, as
though we had threatened a rebellion ! Is it necessary that we should stir
up rebellion to carry out all we said ? We only said, " We are sure that
there are other Protestant denominations besides ourselves who would not
patiently submit to the exaction." Have the Catholics submitted patiently
to what they consider a grievance ? Certainly not, for they have reiterated
their claim again and again with a perseverance which, in a good cause, is
praiseworthy. But we did not say we would rebel ; we said we would not
"patiently submit;" nor should we be patient, until we obtained a legal
remedy. But we have said, " When all the Christian sects shall be satisfied
with their individual share of the public fund, what is to become of those
children whose parents belong to none of these sects, and who cannot con-
scientiously allow them to be educated in the peculiar dogmas of any one
of them ? The different committees who, on a former occasion, approached
your honorable body, have shown that, to provide schools for these only,
would require little less than is now expended ; and it requires little arith-
metic to show that, when the religious sects have taken all, nothing will
remain for those who have not yet been able to decide which of the Chris-
tian denominations to prefer. It must be plain to every impartial observer,
that the applicants are opposed to the whole system of public school in-
struction." Now, the gentleman admits it ; he says it is obviously true,
that, when all is taken, nothing would remain. And wouLl not the sects
take all ? Who else would there be to take it ? And when they had taken
all, nothing would remain. But we have alluded to a large body who
would remain to be educated, when we have no money left for that purpose.

SPEECH OF REV. DR. BOND. 257

Our Roman Catholic brethren claim to be one fifth of the population. We
shall not dispute this. But when the right reverend gentleman alluded to
the statement that six Catholic teachers were employed in the public schools,
he disputed five out of the six, and said that there was but ono that de-
served the name. Now, if you take these six teachers as a fair sample of
this one fifth of the population which is nominally Catholic, how many
would be left that are really Catholic ? and how many would, on similar
principles of calculation, really belong to any of the other sects who profess
to belong to them ? But again, allowing that all are Israel that are of Israel
that all are Christian that profess to be Christian what portion of the
city of New York is there that professes to belong to any sect at all ? Not
one half, I am sure. Well, what becomes of the children of those who
belong to none of these sects ? When the money is distributed among the
sects, " what is to become of those children whose parents belong to none
of these sects, and who cannot conscientiously allow them to be educated in
the peculiar dogmas of any one of them ? " Now, sir, the committees of
the Public School Society expressly tell us, that it would require little less
than the present appropriation to provide for these only. And why ? Be-
cause the expense of tuition is not in proportion to the number taught.
When you have provided what is necessary for a given number, a great
addition may be made without augmenting the expense at all ; and thus a
great expense will be incurred for those who are of no denomination. But
we shall advert to this hereafter. Sir, particular exception has been taken
to our memorial, and the gentleman did us the honor to take it up seriatim,
paragraph by paragraph ; and therefore it may be requisite that I should
thus follow him. I now, then, pass to another of the condemned passages
which it contains :

We are sorry that the reading of the Bible in the public schools, without
note or commentary, is offensive to them ; but we cannot allow the Holy
Scriptures to be accompanied with their notes and commentaries, and to be
put into the hands of the children who may hereafter be the rulers and
legislators of our beloved country ; because, among other bad things taught
in these commentaries, is to be found the lawfulness of murdering heretics,
and the unqualified submission, in all matters of conscience, to the Roman
Catholic Church.

Sir, we confess, if we march to our object, it must be by a plain road.
We are a plain people, but we compromise nothing on the subject of reli-
gion. The right reverend gentleman denied that such are the contents of
their books, and to confirm his opinion, he offers to bet me a thousand dol-
lars. Sir, the right reverend gentleman must excuse me. He tells us our
religion is a young religion. Be it so, sir ; but our Church is old enough to
teach us the sinfulness of betting. Sir, I have been taught, as one of the
primary principles of morals, that it is sinful to take my neighbor's money
without an equivalent. Now, should I accept the gentleman's offer, and
cover his thousand dollars, he, or else I, should take the money of the other
without an equivalent. It may be conformable with the creed of the right
reverend gentleman, but he must allow me to have my " conscientious scru-
ples," and I shall accord the same to him. But if I do not take up his bet,
17

258 TIIE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

I will try to do better. We have said in our memorial that their commenta-
ries teach the lawfulness of murdering heretics. That is the first step. Now
we are bound to sustain this ; at least we are bound to show this Common
Council on what authority we state this. We arc bound to submit our au-
thority to the Common Council, and then any gentleman will be able to
make up his own mind on the subject. I hold in my hand, sir, what is
called " The Rhemish New Testament," and it is proper that I should here
say that we have not said, in our memorial, that these Catholic commenta-
ries have received the sanction of the proper authorities of that Church.
We said no such thing. We said Catholic commentaries and I know of
no commentaries among Protestants that have received the sanction of a
Protestant Church ; ^ind yet do we not call them Protestant, in contradis-
tinction to Catholic commentaries ? All we have, then, to prove, is this,
that this Rhemish New Testament is a Catholic New Testament, written and
published by Roman Catholics, and with such sanctions as ordinarily obtain
among the proper ministers of the Church. It may be alleged that it is.
necessary to have the sanction of His Holiness, or the council ; but all I con-
tend for is, that it has been circulated among Catholics, that it was trans-
lated for that purpose, and is therefore a Catholic commentary. That is all
we contend for. We do not insist that the right reverend gentleman, or any
Church council, or His Holiness himself countenances it. We could not
summon His Holiness to testify on the subject ; but in order to ascertain the
weight of the historical record of that Church, we must take it as it is re-
ceived by the Church itself. Now this book the Rhemish New Testa-
ment says :

The Douay Bible is usually so called, because, although the New Testa-
ment was first translated and published at Rheims, yet the Old Testament
was printed some years after at Douay, the English Jesuits having removed
their monastery from Rheims to Douay before their version of the Old Tes-
tament was completed. In the year 1816, an edition, including both the
Douay Old and the Rhemish New Testament, was issued at Dublin, contain-
ing a large number of comments, replete with impiety, irreligion, and the
most fiery persecution.

The Right Rev. Bishop HUGHES. From what do you read ?

The Rev. Dr. BOND. I read from the second paragraph of the " Intro-
ductory Address to Protestants," of an edition of the Rhemish Testament,
published in New York. It is attested by gentlemen of the highest reputa-
tion in this country by men that will compare in character with any gen-
tlemen, Protestant or Catholic, in any country; and they insist it is a true
republication of that New Testament which was published at Rheims in
1582. .

That edition was published under the direction of all the dignitaries of
the Roman hierarchy in Ireland, and about three hundred others of the
most influential subordinate priests. The notes which urged the hatred and
murder of Protestants, attracted the attention of the British churches ; and,
to use the words of T. Hartwell Home, that edition of the Rhemish Testa-
ment, printed at Dublin in 1816, " corrected and revised and approved by
Dr. Troy, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, was reviewed by the

SPEECH OF REV. DR. BOND. 259

British Critic, vol via., pp. 276-308, New Scries ; and its dangerous tenets,
both civil and religious, were exposed.

This publication, with many others of a similar character, produced so
great an excitement in Britain, that finally several of the most prominent of
the Irish Roman prelates were called before the English Parliament to prove
their own work. Then, and upon oath, with all official solemnity, they
peremptorily disclaimed the volumes published by their own instigation,
and under their own supervision and auspices, as books of no authority,
because they had not been ratified by the pope and received by the whole
papal Church.

Now have we made any mistake in calling this a Catholic commentary ?
It must be admitted we have some ground for it. And now for some of the
" annotations," to show the ground we have for alleging that they do teach
the lawfulness of murdering heretics.

And the servants said to him, Wilt thou we go and gather it up ?
Mr. Alderman GRAHAM (Chairman). Will the speaker give the page ?
The Rev. Dr. BOND. The 44th page,- and the 28th verse of the thirteenth
chapter of Matthew.

And he said, No ; lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you may root up
the wheat also together with it.

Now for the commentary :

The good must tolerate the evil, when it is so strong that it cannot be
redressed without danger and disturbance of the whole Church, and commit
the matter to God's judgment in the latter day. Otherwise, where ill men,
be they heretics or other malefactors, may be punished or suppressed without
disturbance and hazard of the good, they may and ought by public author-
ity, either spiritual or temporal, be chastised or executed.

I quote from the ninth chapter of St. Luke, p. 108 :

And when his disciples James and John had seen it, they said, Lord,
wilt thou we say that fire come down from heaven, and consume them ?
And turning, he rebuked them, saying. You know not of what spirit you
are.

Now for the " annotation : "

Not justice nor all rigorous punishment of sinners is here forbidden, nor
Elias' fact reprehended, nor the Church or Christian princes blamed for put-
ting heretics to death : but that none of these should be done for desire of
our particular revenge, or without discretion, and regard of their amend-
ment, and example to others. Therefore Peter used his power upon Ananias
and Saphira, when he struck them both down to death for defrauding the
Church.

I quote from the 116th page, the 23d verse of the fourteenth chapter of
St. Luke.

And the Lord said to the servant, Go forth into the ways and hedges,
and compel them to enter, that ray house may be filled.

Now for the commentary :

The vehement persuasion that God useth, both externally by force of His
word and miracles, and internally by His grace, to bring us unto Him, is
called compelling : not that He forceth any to come to Him against their
wills, but that He can alter and mollify a hard heart, and make him will-

260 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ing that before would not. ^ Augustine also referreth this compelling to
the penal laws which Catholic princes do justly use against heretics and
schismatics, proving that they who are by their former profession in baptism
subject to the Catholic Church, and are departed from the same after sects,
may and ought to be compelled into the unity and society of the universal
Church again : and therefore, in this sense, by the two former parts of the
parables, the Jews first, and secondly the Gentiles, that never believed before
in Christ, were invited by fair, sweet means only : but by the third, such are
invited as the Church of God hath power over, because they promised in
baptism, and therefore are to be revoked, not only by gentle means, but by
just punishment also.

I quote from the annotations of the 23d verse of the twentieth chapter
of St. John :

The earthly princes, indeed, have also power to bind, but the bodies
only : but that bond of priests which I speak of, toucheth the very soul it-
self, and reacheth even to the heavens : insomuch, that whatsoever the
priests shall do beneath, the self-same God doth ratify above, and the sen-
tence of the servants of the Lord doth confirm ; for, indeed, what else is
this than that the power of all heavenly things is granted them of God ?

I quote from p. 214, verse 11, chap, jcxv., of the Acts :
I appeal to Caesar.
This is the annotation :

If Paul, both to save himself from whipping and from death sought by
the Jews, doubted not to cry for honor of the Roman laws, and to appeal to
Caesar, the Prince of the Romans, not yet christened, how much more may
we call for aid of Christian princes and their laws, for the punishment of
heretics, and for the Church's defence against them.

I quote from annotations on the tenth chapter of Hebrews, 29th verse,
on p. 373 :

Heresy and apostasy from the Catholic faith, punishable by death.

I will make but one more extract, and that is from the annotations on
the Apocalypse, or the book of Revelations, seventeenth chapter, 6th verse,
p. 430. It is in reference to the woman drunken with the blood of the
saints :

It is plain that this woman signifieth the whole corps of all the persecu-
tors that have and shall shed so much blood of the just : of the prophets,
apostles, and other martyrs, from the beginning of the world to the end.
The Protestants foolishly expound it of Rome, for that there they put here-
tics to death, and allow of their punishment in other countries. But their
blood is not called the blood of the saints, no more than the blood of thieves,
man-killers, and other malefactors for the shedding of which, by order of
justice, no commonwealth shall answer.

A friend suggests to me that I may also say the Rhemish New Testament
is not found in the Prohibitory Index ; but I do not assert that this is in
itself conclusive, for there are, I must admit, thousands of books that are
not forbidden, for which Catholics are not responsible. All we contend for
is this, that this book was published at Rheiins by the Jesuits ; that they
subsequently removed to and republished it at Douay ; since that it was re-
published in Ireland, under the sanction of the Catholic dignitaries, and of
a large number of the priesthood of that Church. But when it was found

SPEECH OF REV. DE. BOND. 261

that this work had created great alarm in England, and these very dignita-
ries were called before the British Parliament, they did not say it had not
their sanction, but they alleged that, because it was not sanctioned by His
Holiness, and had not received the sanction of the Church, but was only
circulated among and sanctioned by a small portion of it, the Church was
not responsible for it, as it was not of Catholic- authority. We have not
said, in our memorial, that it had the authority or was sanctioned by the
Church. We know of no translation into any vulgar tongue which has re-
ceived the sanction of pope or council. The Latin vulgate only has been so
sanctioned. We only allege, then, that this is a~ Catholic publication, or
that it is published by Catholics ; and that these are Catholic commentaries.
And we again affirm all we have said. We have, moreover, alleged that,
" among other bad things taught in these commentaries, is to be found the
absolute and unqualified submission, in all matters of conscience, to the
Roman Catholic Church." But as it has been admitted that the Church has
this authority with all who submit to that Church, it is unnecessary to
prove that the commentaries teach it.

Sir, the next complaint was of the following paragraph :

The Roman Catholics complain that books have been introduced into
the public schools which are injurious to them as a body. It is allowed,
however, that the passages in these books to which such reference is made
are chiefly, if not entirely, historical ; and we put it to the candor of the
Common Council to say, whether any history of Europe, for the last ten
centuries, could be written which could either omit to mention the Roman
Catholic Church, or mention it without recording historical facts unfavor-
able to that Church ? We assert that, if all the historical facts in which the
Church of Rome has taken a prominent part could be taken from writers
of her own communion only, the incidents might be made more objection-
able to the complainants than any book to which they now object.

Sir, the gentleman did not deny this, for, as I recollect, he said it was
true ; he admitted " that, if all the historical facts in which the Church of
Rome has taken a prominent part, could be taken from writers of her own
communion only, the incidents might be made more objectionable," because
they always write the truth. But then he alleges that they also record a
great many good things. Certainly they have written " some good things,"
but it is not from these " good things " exclusively that history is to be
written ; it is not these " good things " that are to constitute history for the
public schools. What is history ? History is " philosophy teaching by
example ; " and could we be taught by example, if we only saw the bright
side of the picture, and not the dark side too ? Could any such history be
useful ? If we see but a partial record, how can we avoid error ? History
is a beacon and a chart ; but would it be so, would it be a proper directory
if it contained only that which could be said in favor of any religious
sect or denomination? Such a record would be worthless "as a history.
The blessed Bible does not do so. Does any history contain a more particu-
lar record than this Book does, of the lapses and falls of the most eminent
people of God ? Does not the faithful page of the sacred historian record
the fall of David ? Yes, sir ; it records that that man, that holy Psalmist

262 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

himself fell, being overcome by temptation, into the crimes of murder and
adultery. Sir, it is a faithful history, and I would desire that all oilr histo-
ries should record all the good of Roman Catholics ; but they must record
the evil also, or they are not histories at all. But we have said, " History,
then, must be falsified for their accommodation." And would it not be so,
if only that which was good of them was recorded ? " And yet they com-
plain that the system of education adopted in the public schools does not
teach the sinfulness of lying ! " It may be painful to them, but are we to
have no feeling ? But the right reverend gentleman told us that the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church is a young Church, and that this was the reason why
there were not many very bad things said of us. He said our Church was
only a hundred years old. Yet a great many bad things may be done in a
hundred years. But we have not escaped unscathed, though, perhaps, the
gentleman may not know it. Why, sir, Mr. O'Connell has published that
our founder, Mr. Wesley, aided and abetted Lord George Gordon's mob !
Yes, that, if Wesley did not originate, he aided and abetted it ; so that we
have not escaped unscathed. But the reverend gentleman went further.
He said we had done less good lhan any other denomination in Christen-
dom. Why, we are not asking this Council any reward for what we have
done ; we make no pretensions. Whether we have done good, we leave oth-
ers to decide. All we claim is, that we have stood in our lot. We believe
the different sects and denominations in Christendom are permitted of God
for wise purposes. We would not swallow them up if we could. We would
not cross the street to make all other Protestants members of our Church.
We have our work ; we cannot do their work, they cannot do ours. We
make no claim ; but if we have not done a great deal of good, how can the
gentleman with propriety profess so much respect for us ? If we had done
good, we should not have escaped, any more than our brethren so signifi-
cantly and appropriately termed '"Friends." They have done good, yet
they have not escaped any more than ourselves. It is to them that the
world owes the increasing disapproval of war ; and though they have not
been able to accomplish what they desire, and though they have been unre-
sistingly oppressed, they have borne a patient testimony to their doctrine,
and, with the revolutions of this world, the day will come when war will be
no more. And have they not borne a holy testimony against slavery ? not
a turbulent and an abusive testimony, but such as comports with the doc-
trines they teach ; and yet they have not escaped, though they have confess-
edly done a great deal of good. It has been said that the Methodist Epis-
copal Church in England never favored the rights of conscience, nor aided
in the enlargement of liberty. Why, there is no Methodist Episcopal
Church in England at all. The Methodist Society in England claims only
to be a society within the pale of the Church of England, as the Jesuits are
a society within the pale of the Catholic Church. If it be alleged that the
Methodist Society are not acknowledged by the Church of England, it will
not be forgotten that the order of Jesuits have been suppressed by the pope.
It seems, however, that the latter have been restored ; and so our friends in
England seem to be getting high in favor with the English establishment.

SPEECH OF EEV. DR. BOND. 263

Yet, we owe them no allegiance ; we send them no books to be sanctioned
before*we venture to use them in our schools; in short, we do not' admit
their right to dictate to us in any matter whatever. It is in this country
only that there exists any Methodist Episcopal Church. But we are told
that the Methodists in England have never taken any part, or given any aid,
in the struggle for religious liberty. It is true, sir, that the Methodists in
England, like the Methodists here, eschew all participation in political
strife, as a society or Church. They do not think it any part of their voca-
tion to call meetings in their churches, and address them on the political
questions of the day, as some other Churches do. Perhaps they are too
young a Church for this, and we hope it will be a long time before they get
old enough to do so. But individually they act in these matters as others
do ; and it is to the honor of the Methodist denomination in England, that
their members generally gave their whole weight and influence to Mr. Wil-
berforce in all his benevolent efforts in favor of civil and religious liberty.
During his long struggle against the slave trade, such was their attachment
to him and his cause, that, in some parts of England, collections were made
at the doors of their places of worship to aid in defraying the expenses of
his election.

But we have said, " This is not all. They have been most complaisantly
offered the censorship of the books to be used in the public schools. The
committee to whom has been confided the management of these schools in
this city, offered to allow the Roman Catholic bishop to expurgate from
these books any thing offensive to him. But the offer was not accepted ;
perhaps for the same reason that he declined to decide on the admissibility
of a book of extracts from the Bible, which had been sanctioned by certain
Roman bishops in Ireland. An appeal, it seems, had gone to the pope on
the subject, and nothing could be said or done in the matter until His Holi-
ness had decided. The Common Council of New York will therefore find
that, when they shall have conceded to the Roman Catholics of this city the
selection of books for the use of the public schools, that these books must
undergo the censorship of a foreign potentate. We hope the time is far
distant when the citizens of this country will allow any foreign power to
dictate to them in matters relating to either general or municipal law." To
this it is objected simply that the Roman Catholics of this country acknowl-
edge the supremacy of the pope only in spiritual things ; that they do not
acknowledge in him either political or civil, or any other than spiritual
authority. Well, sir, we have not said they did, in our memorial. What,
then, is the complaint ? We did not undertake to determine whether the
submitting to His Holiness the question whether a book shall be used in our
schools is a spiritual or temporal matter. But we really wish to know where
temporal jurisdiction ends and spiritual jurisdiction begins. We should
like to have some definite boundary, some line of demarcation drawn be-
tween temporal and spiritual authority. We did consider the public
schools a secular matter altogether ; we did think it a temporal matter to
decide what books should be used in our public schools, for professedly they
do not intend to interfere with the peculiarities of any sect. But if this is

264 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

really a spiritual matter, where will it end ? What is it it cannot reach ?
What is, it it will not reach ? If it is a spiritual matter, then all {hat is
necessary to carry out spiritual dominion must be granted ; and when was
it that, to enforce spiritual dictation, temporal power was not resorted to if
practicable ? The time was when, to enforce this spiritual authority, a
whole country was laid under interdict. Who does not know that the time
was when the churches in England were all hung in black when the dead
were unburied when the children were not baptized and when nothing
was done by the clergy which the community esteemed essential to their
eternal interests, and subjects absolved from their allegiance because the
king refused to submit to the pope of Rome ? This power may not exist
here ; the pretension may have been abandoned ; but if it has been, I should
like to know it. I should like to know where the boundary is between tem-
poral and spiritual power. I should like, for the first time, to be taught
whether they consider the common interests of education a secular or a
spiritual matter; and, if a secular, whether it is to be interfered with by
this spiritual power. As yet it cannot be determined what books will be
tolerated in the public schools by the Roman Catholic bishop, while an
appeal has gone to the Roman pontiff; nothing can be done here until his
answer is received ! The gentleman did not deny this last night, when it
was so alleged on the part of the Public School Society, and therefore he
must pardon me if I believe it.

Sir, we did, in our memorial, regret that our Roman Catholic fellow-
citizens, in their address, should have referred to the martyrs of their Church
who suffered for opinion's sake, and we did say it was an unfortunate allu-
sion. It was unfortunate because it was addressed to all classes of the com-
munity, and because, in this community, there are strangers from abroad, of
all countries, among whom there are descendants of Protestants who suf-
fered for their religion. We said it was an unfortunate allusion, and we
said so because it would revive in the minds of many the memories of their
ancestors, and they would thereby be reminded of the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, the fires of Smith-
field, or the crusade against the Waldenses. Now, we did not mean to say
that the right reverend gentleman has power to do these things now ; we
did not intend to insinuate that our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens would
persecute now ; but we said it was unfortunate. And was it not unfortu-
nate to do any thing to revive the recollection of scenes so painful ? But
we said we were desirous to cover all these scenes with the mantle of char-
ity, and the gentleman rebukes us. He tells us to attempt to do no such
thing, for our mantle is too narrow. Well, I suppose he does not mean to
practise this virtue himself, but to revive feelings in Protestants which we
should wish not to recollect if it could be prevented. But he adverts to
their sufferings for conscience' sake, and he went into details of the persecu-
tions of Catholics in England. Now, sir, we are not here to justify persecu-
tion, nor to make excuse for it ; we hate k, and we love to hate it ; but we
are here to say, and we must be allowed to say, that, whatever may be
alleged against Protestants about persecution, that we are at liberty to be

SPEECH OF REV. DR. BOND. 265

better than our fathers ; we are at liberty to renounce both the practice and
the tenets of our fathers, if they are found to be wrong. We say that,
when Protestants persecuted Catholics, they were not half reformed that
they had brought much that was unchristian out of the Church from which
they had come. But we have learned better now; we have abandoned those
tenets and practices. Let the right reverend gentleman say as much for
himself; let him say that, with them, it is not semper eadem, always the
same. Let him say that the Roman Church has erred in matters of faith, or
that she can err, and then the difficulty between Protestants and Catholics
will cease from that moment. If the Catholics of the United States are at
liberty to think for themselves on these subjects, and dissent from whatever
they believe is not according to the Word of God either their translation
or the original if they are at liberty to do this, the difficulty is at an end.
But while they are bound by the decrees of an infallible Church while they
are not to determine any thing for themselves as a matter of faith while
they are not to believe that their Church can at any time be wrong in opin-
ion, that she can never err we have more cause to fear that Catholics will,
if they get the power, persecute the Protestants, than they can have of per-
secution from Protestants. If they can say they do not believe as their
fathers did, we may hope they will not do as their fathers have done ; but
while their motto continues to be " Semper cadem" while they continue to
declare that their Church is always and everywhere the same, we think, sir,
we may not dismiss our fears. Let them renounce their infallibility, and we
will be cured of our apprehensions. But again :

Your memorialists had hoped that the intolerance and exclusiveness
which had characterized the Roman Catholic Church in Europe had been
greatly softened under the benign influences of our civil institutions. The
pertinacity with which their sectarian interests are now urged, has dissi-
pated the illusion. We were content with their having excluded us, ex
cathedra, from all claim to heaven, for we were sure they did not possess the
keys, notwithstanding their confident pretension ; nor did we complain that
they would not allow us any participation in the benefits of purgatory, for
it is a place they have made for themselves, and of which they may claim
the exclusive property ; but we do protest against any appropriation of the
public school fund tor their exclusive benefit, or for any other purposes
whatever.

Now, the right reverend gentleman ought to have remarked here an error
of the printer the omission of the word "sectarian;" and, instead of "any
other purpose whatever," it should have read, " any other sectarvm purpose
whatever."

Sir, the gentleman admits we are right they do not exclude us from
heaven ; but then he alleges that we are as bad as we said they were, for we
exclude Catholics. Now, if there are any that do not allow that good pious
Roman Catholics are going to heaven, I do not know it. If there are any
such in our denomination, it is unknown to me. I hold no such opinions,
'and I hope the gentleman himself will take it back again, when I assure
him that the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, published the life of
Baron De Rentz, and that he abridged and published " Kempis' Christian
Pattern," both of which have been widely circulated amongst our people.

266 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

We do not deny that Roman Catholics may go to heaven, nor did we com-
plain that we were denied any participation in the benefits of their purga-
tory ; but the gentleman tells us to go farther and fare worse. Sir, we will
take our chance for that we will take our chance of faring worse, and of
getting to heaven, too. But if the gentleman denies us the benefit of his
purgatory in the next world, we hope he will allow us the benefits of this
world. If he will allow our children the benefit of the public schools of
a place where they can learn to read God's Holy Word if he will not per-
sist in a measure which will destroy these schools, we will take our chance
of going farther and faring worse. If he will allow our children a place
where they can learn to read that Book which, as the great Mr. Locke says,
has. God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture
of error for its mattter, we will not complain of any other exclusion he may
insist upon in the matter. But it is alleged that we are here to oppose Ro-
man Catholics. Sir, we would oppose the Methodists if the same applica-
tion was made by them. I would have stood here myself to oppose them,
for I do not fear nor dodge any responsibility. We believe that all man-
kind are individually undergoing a moral and intellectual probation before
God ; and that we cannot, without incurring the Divine displeasure, substi-
tute this probationary relation by one before any man, or any number of
men, whether pope or Council, or the Methodist General Conference. None
of these can release us from our obligations as probationers before God.
" To our own master we stand or fall." If the Methodist Episcopal Church
had issued her mandate to me not to appear before this body, and not to
oppose this application, I would have set her authority at naught. We
believe that these public schools are necessary to our form of government ;
that it is not safe to commit the preservation and perpetuation of the public
liberty and of our civil institutions, to an ignorant, untaught multitude to
those who will be incapable of appreciating their value, or who may be
made the dupes of better educated but more wicked men. We say, it is
necessary to the perpetuation of public liberty that the community be edu-
cated that all who exercise the elective franchise should be taught to value
our civil institutions. But we say that no sectarian body can do this ; it
must be done by all together. If you were to give all this money to the
sects, it could not be done. It can only be done by a common system ; for,
if all the sects had this money divided amongst them, there is one half of
the community who would not suffer their children to be taught by them.
What, then, is to become of these children ? Our public liberties demand
a public universal system of education, and this can only be effected by
agents appointed by the State, and answerable to the State ; it can never be
done if t the money be given to any denomination, or divided among all the
sects. Sir, we allege this is the broad principle on which the common
schools are established. Take this away, and you have no right to lay a tax
at all ; you could not lay a tax with any justice for this purpose. If the
money is to be distributed among the different sects and denominations of
Christians, and they are to use it as they think best, even for their own
proselyting purposes I speak of no particular denomination ; all have their

SPEECH OF REV. DK. BOND. 267

preferences and peculiar tenets, and all desire to make converts to their
belief I say, give the money to this end, and what follows ? Why, that
you ought to tax them severally according to what they receive. What
right have you to tax Roman Catholics for the support of Methodist
schools ? or what right have you to tax Methodists for the support of Pres-
byterian schools? In short, what right have you to tax any sect for the sup-
port of the schools of rival sects ? You have first to ascertain what each
requires to support the schools under their care, and then to tax that de-
nomination to the necessary amount. You have no right to tax me, as a
Methodist, for the Roman Catholic schools, but only on the ground that*
education is necessary for the preservation of our public liberties, and for
the public safety. Fall back upon the plan you formerly pursued, and you
will again hear of complaints among the sects, that they do not receive
from the public fund according to what they pay in. Now, the Methodists,
perhaps, pay much' less than some other denominations who are less numer-
ous than themselves. We make it a part of our religion to pay our taxes
if we are able ; but we have very little to be taxed at all ; and if we have
but little to be taxed, we pay but little ; and yet we could supply more chil-
dren than some denominations who pay ten times more. Would they, then,
have no right to complain if 'these schools were established on sectarian
principles instead of public principles ? Would not their complaint be just
and proper ? It is clear that you could not refute these complaints. And
if you concede the prayer of these petitioners, if you grant their request, in
order that you may remove their cause of complaint, you destroy the public
school system, and you may take your leave of it -from that very moment.
The whole fabric will crumble into its original elements ; it cannot stand.

But why should this system of public education be abandoned ? Is it
to appease the scrupulous consciences of the Catholics ? The existence of
public schools, or of the public school system, cannot affect their con-
sciences, for they are not compelled to send their children to the public
schools. Haye they, then, any scruples of conscience about paying taxes for
the support of this institution ? The right reverend gentleman tells you
himself they have not, for he tells you they have not complained, and do
not intend to complain, of the appropriation by the Legislature of money
raised by taxation to Protestant colleges. If, then, sir, you yield the claims
of the Catholics, it will not be to their conscientious objections that you
yield, but to the alleged injustice of compelling them to contribute to a
public benefit from which they, as a sect, derive no advantage. You must,
then, sir, go farther ; you must release all from the payment of taxes who
cannot conscientiously avail themselves of the advantages offered by the
public -schools, and this will include most of the large property-holders in
the city ; for these, being able to afford it, are bound by parental duty to
afford their children a better education than can be given in the public
schools. Yet these are not only willing to pay taxes for the support of pub-
lic schools, but have petitioned the Legislature to tax them for this purpose,
because they are aware that the education of the poor classes is necessary to
the common welfare.

268 TUB PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

But, sir, I adverted to a foreign potentate ; and I did say I desired to
know where his spiritual authority ceased. And I ain the more desirous of
knowing this, because it is alleged and the right reverend gentleman
ought to know if it be true that, by the oath taken by the dignitaries of
that Church, they are bound to support a little more than the pope's spirit-
ual authority. I will make no assertion, but I throw it out that the right
reverend gentleman may say whether his oath of ordination does not bind
him to a little more. Sir, I did say, and I emphatically repeat, that it is
very desirable his fellow-citizens should know where that civil and spiritual
1 authority terminate. I beg pardon for intruding so long upon your atten-
tion. I have gone through our memorial, and that is all we ask. At pres-
ent I have nothing more to say.

The gentlemen who appeared as the representatives of the
petitioners and the remonstrants having now been heard, the
President inquired, What is the pleasure of the board ?

An alderman moved that, if there were other gentlemen
present who desired to be heard, that they be heard on sending
their names to the President ; which was agreed to.

Dr. SWEENEY said that he 'appeared, with several other gen-
tlemen, as a committee from the Catholics, but they withdrew
their claim to be heard, as the Right Rev.. Bishop Hughes was
entitled to a reply.

Dr. DAVID M. REESE, M.D. (a local preacher in the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church), rose, and said :

MR. PRESIDENT : I avail myself of the permission granted by the board
to add a few observations on another branch of the subject, which is inter-
esting to us all, to which I desire for a moment only to direct your atten-
tion. It appears to me, sir, that neither Romanism nor Protestantism is on
trial here, and the question submitted to this honorable board is not whether
the Roman Catholic Church shall have the exclusive control of any portion
of the public treasure, collected, by public taxation, for the purpose of pub-
lic education ; it is not the question whether the Roman Catholic Church
shall have it ; but the great question in which we are interested, as a com-
munity, is, whether any denomination whether any portion of this great
community shall have the exclusive control, though it be but of a single
dollar, of the money raised by public taxation for the public benefit. I
would hope, therefore, if I succeed in gaining your attention to the ^oint
to the single point I submit to you to call you for a moment from every
consideration of a sectarian aspect. Indeed, I humbly conceive that re-
ligious creeds, that sectarian creeds of any kind whatever, are not at issue
in the present controversy. If this application had come from Protestants
as a body, from any political or religious sect, however numerous or power-
ful or popular they might be, the same objection would lie against the appli-

SPEECH OF DE. DAVID M. REESE. 269

cation, from whatever source it might come. I humbly submit, therefore,
whether the right reverend gentleman to whom we had the pleasure to lis-
ten last night, would not have served the public more effectually by in-
structing his people that the opposition to this claim is not an opposition to
the Roman Catholics, but to the principle of appropriating money raised by
taxation for public purposes to any party whatever, for their exclusive con-
trol. I say, the reverend gentleman would have been serving the public,
and would have been doing nothing unworthy of his highly honorable and
sacred office, if he had applied himself to enlightening his people on this
point that the present opposition is not an opposition to their creed or to
their Church, but that the same opposition would be against any other de-
nomination equally as numerous and equally as respectable. Certainly, sir,
this would have been more worthy of his sacred office than haranguing his
people in their public assemblies for the purpose of exciting prejudices
against the public schools. Before these prejudices were created, when
these people had not yet been taught to look upon them as odious, the Ro-
man Catholics sent their children to these schools, and availed themselves
thankfully of their benefits. But now many of them have abstracted their
children, merely because harangues of that kind have been made which are
calculated to create disaffection amongst them. Sir, the opposition made to
this memorial is neither sectarian nor religious ; and, this being premised,
it is impossible that it can involve a question of conscience at all. What is
the question ? It is complained that men, having taxed themselves and
having paid that tax for a given purpose the public benefit have after-
ward voluntarily chosen, in the exercise of their freedom in this free coun-
try, to forego the benefits provided for the public indiscriminately. All are
taxed for public education which is given by the public schools ; but a por-
tion of the citizens choose to relinquish the advantages of these schools.
The question, then, resolves itself into this : Is it sound public policy to tax
the citizens generally for a public purpose, when any portion on whom the
tax is imposed, choose not to avail themselves of its advantages ? You see,
in this aspect, that it strikes at the whole public school system ; for if the
Roman Catholics are to be excused because they choose to forego the advan-
tages provided, every other sect, whether for the sake of party politics or
religion, might take the same attitude and plead the same conscience, and
the result would be that there would be no provision made for public edu-
cation, and the rising generation in multitudes would grow up like " the
wild asses' colt."

Now, in this aspect, I humbly submit whether our fellow-citizens who are
found peacefully enjoying their rights and liberties in this country, do not
receive an equivalent for the taxes which they pay, in the proper exercise of
the right of suffrage which is here secured ; whether they ought not thus
to contribute to the political advantages which this happy country fur-
nishes ; and whether they do not thus secure an ample equivalent for the
taxes which they pay, even in cases where they voluntarily decline to avail
themselves of the public schools ? But, sir, I know a conscience may be
created in this community by a bishop or other dignitary. Let them but

270 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

turn their churches into bear-gardens, and agitate their congregations by
exciting speeches, as has been done on this subject, and others will be
taught to plead their newly-excited consciences beside Roman Catholics.
And shall this great community be deprived of this system because such a
conscience is created ? But if there can be no conscience in the matter in
truth, the point is narrowed down to the question, Is it a hardship to pay a
tax for a public benefit, when we thus forego the advantages? Or ought
every man who does not avail himself of the advantages which the system
furnishes, to be exempted from taxation ? We know a disposition Jo avoid
taxation exists in thousands ; and if conscience is to be an excuse, con-
science will easily be started to avoid the payment, and the result will be
that no public education could be sustained, here or elsewhere.

As well might the petitioners ask for a separate almshouse or a separate
hospital for their exclusive accommodation, and allege the hardship of pay-
ing a tax for the support of these public charities, while their consciences
would not allow them to take shelter there in time of adversity ; because,
forsooth, a Protestant Bible is sometimes found there, and a Protestant
chaplain sometimes reads a chapter there for the consolation of the sick and
dying.

Sir, it is the enlightened public policy of our city, State, and nation, to
provide and perpetuate the facilities for educating the entire population in
the rudiments of secular learning, and to support these and other public
institutions by public taxation. The provision is free for all, and all con-
tribute to its maintenance. But if individuals among us choose to educate
their own children, and refuse to avail themselves of the public schools, the
act is their own, but in no wise furnishes them a pretext to complain.
Especially when such individuals establish settarian schools, in which, with
the secular knowledge imparted, their own religious tenets are to be taught,
is it not passing strange that they should wish to impose upon all other
religions the tax of sustaining those schools in which their own religion is
exclusively to be inculcated ? I care not whether such individuals be Ro-
man Catholics or Protestants, they cannot by possibility possess any right
of conscience which will give them a claim to impose upon any other man's
conscience the burden of supporting their sectarian or exclusive schools.
Nor can the money raised by public taxation to support public schools, be
expended in any other schools than those of strictly public character, which
denominational schools cannot be, in the nature of things.

The system of the New York Public School Society secures, confessedly,
every desirable facility for secular learning, to an extent commensurate with
the population. No religious test is required as a qualification for the office
of teacher in these schools, and both trustees and teachers are promiscuous-
ly taken from all denominations, a number of Roman Catholics being
engaged both as trustees and teachers. Great care, however, is token to
have none employed in these schools as teachers but persons of good moral
character ; and while all the peculiarities of doctrinal tenets which distin-
guish and separate Christian churches of every name are excluded, the purest
morals in which all agree are taught among the lessons of each day, a chap-

SPEECH OF REV. JOHN KNOX, D.D. 271

ter in the Bible being read at the opening of the school. The petitioners
themselves -do not allege any defect in the Secular knowledge here taught,
nor do they complain that any religious doctrines are inculcated in these
schools. But they insist that their consciences will not allow them to sus-
tain such schools, because NO religion is taught in them. And surely they
would consent to none being taught, except their own religion, and hence it
is for this purpose alone they have their own schools. It is idle, then, for
the right reverend bishop to repeat his disclaimer of any intention to teach
his own religion in his own schools ; for in no other way can he make out
his pica of conscience, nor can he in any other way make out a single plea
against the present excellent system of public school instruction.

I do not design to prolong the discussion, but I feel impelled to say what
I have said, for I have observed the excitement which exists, arising out of
the false issue which the right reverend gentleman has created, and that
hence all the publications on that side of the question in putting forth the
claim of the Catholics, have treated it as though the opposition to it was an
opposition to Roman Catholics. Sir, I disclaim it. I am not aware that
any man in this community opposes it because it is the petition of Roman
Catholics, but because it comes from a class of citizens, highly respectable
and numerous, I admit, who ask for this money to be placed under their own
control. I am sure those with-whom I am associated do not oppose it merely
because it comes from Roman Catholics. We believe the Public School
Society confers on us, and on this community, an advantage by the secular
instruction of the rising generation. We see, daily, multitudes in these
schools of children who will soon be introduced on the stage as citizens of
this republic, and it is vastly important that they should be educated and
qualified for the discharge of the important duties of freemen. This public
school system is preparing them for that purpose ; it is attracting the atten-
tion of public men of other countries. These schools are regarded as the
nurseries of intelligent freemen, who will hereafter have to take the guar-
dianship of the liberties of this country. We are training up thousands of
citizens, not only for New York, but for the West. New York contributes
much to the population of this nation, and the power lies with this Board
of Aldermen to direct their training so as to make them useful to their
country. But there comes a petition, from a body highly respectable, I ad-
mit, who ask, " Let us have this money which is collected for a public pur-
pose, and we will apply it to a private one." I know they disclaim sectarian
views, if the money is obtained ; but if their views are not sectarian, they
can find no valid objection, nor make any improvement to the existing sys-
tem of public schools. It is immeasurably important that the present sys-
tem should be supported. The gentlemen to whom the schools are now in-
trusted have shown themselves amply qualified to discharge their duties,
and I hope any attempt to destroy the present system will be frowned down,
whether it be made by Catholic or Protestant, Christian or infidel.

The Rev. Dr. KNOX, of the Dutch Reformed Church, said :
MR. PRESIDENT : I should not have risen to claim your indulgence for a

272 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

single moment, were it not to say that the Christian denomination -with
which I am connected, in their* united sentiment are adverse to the prayer
of the memorial now btfore you ; and that they would unquestionably have
been here with a counter memorial, if they had not cherished a confidence
that, in the hands of this Corporation, the matter is perfectly safe. Sir, I
regard the subject now before this honorable body as one of most momen-
tous importance. The principle on which our Government is established is
of a character to exclude all immediate connection, on the part of our Gov-
ernment, with religious things. All religion is fully tolerated, fully pro-
tected, and then it is left alone, and there I hope it will continue to be. It
is not profaned by the contact of civil enactments. We have never heard
of any " act of uniformity," to set a whole community by the cars. Sir,
this principle, in this State, is guarded with most peculiar jealousy : there is
not a minister of religion that can even be appointed as the superintendent
of a common school, or be eligible to any civil office. Whether it is an
innovation on our natural rights, I will not undertake to inquire ; but with
the existence of such enactments I feel perfectly satisfied. Let it so be. In-
terrupt this state of things, and whither will it lead ? Who can foretell to
what it may lead ? The denomination with which it is my honor and
happiness to be connected, was the first to introduce the gospel of salvation
to these shores. Individuals of this communion laid the foundation of this
city ; they embraced a large portion of the population of the State, and bear
a large part of its burdens ; and I know that the feeling of this part of our
population is unanimously in favor of leaving matters as they are. As a
demonstration that they are disinterested, the particular Church which. I
serve has sustained a charity school more than a century ; it sustains it still
from the private charity of Christians ; and they never received aid from
the State, except, for a few years, a few dollars for each child, during the
operation of the law referred to last evening.

Now, personally, in reference to our Roman Catholic friends, my feelings
are entirely kind. I have not any other feeling. I am not a man of strife.
But this matter would not be quietly submitted to. Were any denomina-
tion, existing among us, to put forth such a claim as is now before this
board were the Presbyterians to do it, we would not regard it as right.
Were the Episcopalians, or the Methodists, to do it, we should not deem it
right. In any case, we should not feel content to contribute to the general
treasury of the State, if a portion of that treasury were to be taken hold
upon by a particular denomination. Whilst the whole spirit of our Govern-
ment, whether general or State, frowns upon any thing that looks like ele-
vating one section of the Christian community in preference to another, it
would not be kindly regarded if the prayer of this petition were complied
with, and a distinction were conferred on one, and not on others. But,
while I say that I feel kindness toward our Roman Catholic friends, candor
would require me to go a little further than many have gone who have ad-
dressed you.

With reference to the system of religion by which they are distinguished,
I cannot help regarding it as differing from others. They so regard it. It

SPEECH OF EEV. JOHN KNOX, D.D. 273

is exclusive ; and they claim for it immutability and infallibility. Sir, can
Protestants, believing as they do believe, consent to be directly instrumental
in elevating to strength, and in cherishing, a system like this ? I think not.
I think the citizens of this State will say it ought not to be.

Mr. President, for myself, I wish our Catholic fellow-citizens to enjoy all
the immunities that are enjoyed by any others ; but with that I wish them
to rest content. I have sought carefully, and according to my best ability,
during this discussion and previously, to ascertain what is the precise
ground of their dissatisfaction, and I confess I am not instructed yet. We
are told that in these common schools religion is not taught ; and in juxta-
position -we are told that the Bible is read. Now, with regard to the ad-
ministration of those schools, we have had abundant testimony, both here
and elsewhere, that they are conducted with extreme with the very utmost
''are. Is disobedience to parents taught there ? Are they taught to falsify
the truth ? or to do a wrong thing ? On the contrary, are they not instruct-
ed in the common fundamental principles of morals, while they are taught
to read and write, and to discharge the duty of citizens when they arrive at
maturity ? The Bible is read,' as it ought to be ; and occasionally passages
have been found in the books, admitted into the libraries, which are offen-
sive to the feelings of Catholics. These have been expurgated as soon as
detected, in every instance that I am aware of. But is this a sufficient reason
for so great a change ? Can you, or any gentleman who is in the habit of
reading, for a single week or day, be perfectly sure that, even when reading
works of a select kind you shall not find something that may not be conso-
nant with your feelings ? But let it be overlooked and passed by. Do
these schools interfere with our religious instruction of our children ? Do
they take them away from the parent, or the pastor, or from the Sabbath
school ? Are they conducted by individuals of the same faith ? I believe
net. I am not able to find a just cause of complaint.

I have but a single remark more, for I have observed the great patience
with which this honorable Council has sat to hear the remarks of gentlemen
both yesterday and to-day, and I am unwilling to occupy more than another
moment of their time on a single point. The gentleman who first addressed
you yesterday afternoon, throughout the whole of his exceedingly able and
eloquent address, labored this one point, to endeavor to produce an impres-
sion on the minds of this Common Council that a false issue had been started
that they do not want the public money to aid them in communicating
religious instruction. Why, Mr. President, it is strange that this single idea
was not lost sight of during that long, able, and eloquent address of more
than two hours' duration. But, sir, if they are willing to pledge themselves
to give no religious instruction in their schools, why not allow their chil-
dren to go to the common schools during school hours, and afterward give
them religious education ? I confess I do not know how this can be so.
The only answer I can myself imagine is this : that, upon the whole, there
is an influence exerted by a contact with the children in these schools ad-
verse to feelings of reverence for Catholic peculiarities. That must be it.
Well, now, is it so ? Sir, my children are exposed, by mingling with the
18

274: TI1E PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

community, to things which are adverse to their feelings if you choose,
their prejudices; they may at the same time meet with things which reflect
on their family, and on their associations their religious associations and
their other associations too. Does that weaken their attachment to those
associations ? No, it strengthens them. They at once say, Those persons
don't think as I do ; they don't feel as I do. We may be taunted about our
pastors or our faith ; does that lessen our attachment to them ? I think
not. We think we are right and they are wrong, and we let it pass. Sir, I
repeat, though I am not delegated to attend here to tell it, that these senti-
ments pervade the denomination which I represent, and with the expression
of that fact I will retire, and not trouble the board any longer.

The Rev. Dr. BANGS, of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
said :

SIR : I avail myself of the liberty which your resolution gives me, to
make one or two remarks. It might be inferred by some, from the position
we occupy here, that we appear here as a sect, to vindicate our sectarian
principles and rights. Now, if such an impression should have existed, I
wish to correct it. We appear here simply, with the rest of our fellow-citi-
zens, for the purpose of opposing what we conceive to be an unjust applica-
tion. We have nothing to ask for. We do not ask for a. portion of the
public money to enable us to educate our children. The time was when the
Methodist Episcopal Church had a flourishing charity school, which they
supported for upward of forty years without a cent from the public fund ;
'but when the Legislature of the State concluded to distribute a portion in
the city of New York among the charity schools, we received our propor-
tion ; and at the first, when a motion was made to take it out of the hands
of charity schools, and give it to the public schools, we did remonstrate,
with others. But we are very glad to say that, since we have seen the sys-
tem in operation, and viewed its blessed effects on the minds of our children
and the community, we joyfully acquiesce in the decision of the Common
Council on that subject. There is one objection made to this system which
somewhat surprised me. It was stated, if I did not misunderstand it, that,
by taking these children and sending them to these schools, they are taken
out of the hands of their parents and delivered over to the hands of the
public officer of the State. Why, sir, this is very extraordinary. Suppose
our brethren of the Roman Catholic Church established their schools fpr
they have them, I suppose do they not take their children, during school
hours, from the hands of their parents ? Are they not, for the time being,
taken out of the domestic circle, and delivered over to the hands of the
public teacher ? And does not every father and mother, when they resign
their children to a school, an academy, or a college, deliver them out of
their hands for the time being ? But, sir, the sending of children to public
schools in this city is not taking them out of the hands of the domestic gov-
ernment. The schools are established in the midst of us ; we can send our
children to them, and they are only absent from us about six hours, and the
Test of the time they are with us. How, then, pray tell me, have these

SPEECH OP EEV. NATHAN BANGS, D.D. 275

schools invaded the authority of the father and mother ? There is another
point. If I did not misunderstand the senior pastor of the Roman Catholic
Church, he told us that the instruction in these schools tended to infidelity.
He disclaimed any intention to charge this upon the principles of the man-
agers of that institution, but he said the system itself tended to infidelity.
Now, sir, what is the great bulwark against infidelity ? Is it not the Bible,
sir ? What are all the commentaries, what are all the dissertations that
were ever written, even the most learned, in comparison with the Bible ?
Are we to suppose that any human teaching in the Roman Catholic schools
will be paramount to the Bible in checking the overflowings of infidelity ?
Would I trust myself, or my denomination, in preference to the Bible ? No,
sir. The Bible contains its own evidence of its own truth ; it reflects its
own light, unobscured by the commentaries of feeble man ; and are we to
be told that the Holy Scriptures, without note and comment, will lead to
infidelity ? If I mistake not, one of the trustees told us that the Holy
Scriptures were read every day, and that the children were taught that God
made them, and that He saw their thoughts, words, and actions ; and these,
we know, are the first principles of revealed religion, in opposition to secta-
rianism ; and, in all this, what testimony have we that these schools tend to
infidelity ? For what shall we change the Bible, the Holy Book of God,
which announces divine truths to man ? Shall we exchange this Bible for
the teaching of the Roman Catholic schoolmaster ? Which is the best
adapted to stem the flood of infidelity ? But they don't design to teach
sectarianism ! What then ? I rejoice to be able to say here and I believe
the right reverend gentleman will join me in saying that he believes in one
God, in one Saviour, in the Holy Ghost, the forgiveness of sins, the regener-
ation of the heart by the Holy Spirit, justification by faith, and in a future
day of judgment. I believe he will join with me, or any one else, in the
belief of these truths. Are they not the truths of the Bible ? And may
not these truths be taught our children ? Are they not taught in Roman
Catholic schools ? What, then, do they desire to teach ? Why, the pecu-
liarities of their system, and nothing else ; for all these leading truths are
taught in the Bible. He wants something, I presume, that is not in the
Bible ; for the Bible is taught there, and, if any thing else is to be taught
that is not in the school, it must be something that is not in the Bible, and
therefore it must be sectarian. Now, we have arrived at an age in our
republic when we see the different sects and denominations, though they
may not agree in all things, agreeing in all leading points. On these we can
meet and unite, and strengthen each other's hands to do good in our day
and generation. We therefore, as a denomination, unite with our brethren
of other denominations, and those of no denomination or, in other words,
with the representatives of every society to say, Let this fund be appropri-
ated as it was intended to be, and let all share alike in the education of the
rising generation. For myself, I could go still farther than has been gone,
and say, that these little vagrants that are suffered to stroll about the streets
and spend their time in idleness, I would compel to enter these schools ;
and I believe it would be an act of humanity, if their parents were so indif-

276 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ferent to the welfare of their children that they allowed them to spend their
time in idleness, or something worse. Let the State extend the hand of
compassion, and take them out of the streets, to be taught where they will
be saved from vicious indulgences ; and I hope the time will yet come when
it will be done.

The Kev. GARDINER SPRING, D.D. of the Presbyterian Church,
said :

MR. PRESIDENT : As much time has been consumed, as this question has
been abundantly discussed, and with great ability, especially by the learned
counsel, had I not been urged to say a word on behalf of the Presbyterian
Church, I should not have claimed your attention. I am not authorized by
the Presbyterian Church, as a Church, to attend here ; but if I had, I would
have paid more particular attention to the subject than I have done. I can
say, with my worthy brother of the Dutch Reformed Church, that the senti-
ment of the Church at large with which I am connected is one of entire
unanimity of ardent and cordial opposition to the petition which is now
before you from the Roman Catholic Church. I will state, sir, but a single
fact, without recapitulating the valuable remarks of the other gentlemen,
which has rested on my mind, and may have some weight in the bosom of
some gentlemen with whom the decision rests. In the providence of God,
sir, having been more than thirty years in this city, I have had opportunities
of watching .the progress of the Public School Society, and of knowing
some of its history in that period of time. When it was separated from the
Churches as such, and assumed its present shape, it was a solemn matter of
compromise and contract on the part of the Corporation and the Public
School Society. I do not say it was a contract in writing, but this was the
understanding of all our Churches. We were solicited to give up our
rights and denominational feelings, to which we were strongly attached,
that this large scheme might go into operation and spread its influence over
the community ; and the alternative with us was, whether we should oppose
that great scheme, and continue the pilfering which had been detected in
one society, with its unpleasant attendant consequences, or aid the public
school plan. And we sacrificed our feelings for the general good, on the
sacred understanding that the system should be continued ; and we shall
consider it a violation of good faith if you grant this application. I can
unite with some of my friends who have preceded me, in saying that, if this
application had come from any other denomination, I would have opposed
it. But I cannot say that I have no greater opposition to it because it comes
from my Catholic friends. I do view it with more alarm on account of the
source from which it comes. And any man who looks at the history of^ the
Catholic Church, whether in or out of power, and finds she has ever been,
and in those parts of Europe where she remains in power she continues to
be, almost uniformly the enemy of liberty, will look upon this application
with suspicion and fear. I do so not only as an American, but as a Chris-
tian, as a Protestant, and as a Presbyterian. The gentleman has sought to

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 277

prove that the present system leads to infidelity. Now, sir, let no man think
it strange that I should prefer even infidelity to Catholicism. Even a mind
as acute as Voltaire's came to the conclusion that, if there "was no alternative
between infidelity and the dogmas of the Catholic Church, he should choose
infidelity. I would choose, sir, in similar circumstances, to be an infidel to-
morrow.

Mr. President, my worthy father I would call him brother, for my hairs
are almost as gray as his has well said, that the great barrier to infidelity
is the Bible. But, sir, the right reverend gentleman told us, yesterday, he
had no confidence in the Protestant Bible ; and yet you heard him, when he
came to a community of Protestant citizens, ask for the bounty of the State
to support such a system as his ! With you, gentlemen, the power remains.
I need not now, after what has been said indeed, this would not be the
proper place urge any arguments at length on this subject, and therefore I
will not further trespass on your time ; nor need I scarcely ask pardon for
detaining you so long, having been myself urged to say something on be-
half of the Church with which I am connected.

The President said the closing remarks would be given to
the petitioners.

Mr. KETCH UM observed that, if any new matter were intro-
duced, he hoped he should have the opportunity to reply. The
right reverend gentleman opened on the part of the petitioners ;
lie had been replied to, and it was but right that he should have
the right to reply to the other speakers ; but if he urged new
matter, either of fact or argument, he, on the part of the School
Society, should claim the right to reply to that new matter.

The President called upon the Right Rev. Dr. Hughes to
conclude the debate.

The Right Rev. Bishop HUGHES then rose, to reply to the
arguments of all the gentlemen who had- been heard on the sub-
ject, and he spoke nearly as follows :

MR. PRESIDENT : It would require a mind of much greater capacity than
mine to arrange and mature the topics, relevant or otherwise, that have been
introduced into this discussion since I had the honor to address you yester-
day. No less than seven or eight gentlemen of great ability have presented
their respective views on the subject ; and not only on the subject in regard
to its intrinsic merits, but on subjects which they deemed at least collateral,
but which I think quite irrelevant. The gentleman who last addressed you
(Dr. Spring) is entitled to my acknowledgments for the candor with which
he expressed his sentiments in reference to it namely, that he was opposed
to it more because it came from Catholics than if it had been presented by
any other denomination. That gentleman is entitled to my acknowledg-
.ment, and I award it, if worthy of his acceptance. The subject for it is

278 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

exceedingly important that the subject should be kept in view is one, as I
stated before, that is very simple. We are a portion of this community ; we
desire to be nothing greater than any other portion ; we are not content to
be made less. There is nothing, sir, in that system of the Public School
Society against which any of the gentlemen who have spoken, either in their
individual capacity or as the representatives of bodies of people, have urged
a single conscientious objection, and, of course, they have no right to com-
plain ; they are satisfied, and therefore I am willing that they should have
the system ; but I am not willing that they should press it upon me, and for
good reason. And, sir, if this honorable body rejects the claim of your
petitioners, what is the issue ? That we are deprived of the benefits to
which we are entitled, and that we are not one iota worse than we were
before. That is our consolation. But the whole range of the argument of
the gentleman who spoke last was, to show that this public school system
was got up with the concurrence of public opinion, and that, having been
so got up, it had worked beautifully, and that gentlemen who had never
heard o conscientious objections to it, because it suits their views, deem it
wonderful that we can have any conscience at all on the subject. That is
the amount of it. What I no ground for conscientious objection, when you
teach our children in those schools that " the deceitful Catholics " burned
John Huss at the stake for conscience, when evidences are numerous before
you of a more just and a more honorable character when you might find
on the page of history that, in Catholic Poland, every avenue to dignity in
the State was opened to Protestants, by the concurrent vote of eight Catho-
lic bishops, whilst the vote of any ONE of them, according to the constitu-
tion of the Polish Diet, of which they were members, could have prevented
the law being passed ; and, what is more, when the first lesson of universal
toleration and freedom of conscience the world was ever called to learn was
set by the Catholics of Maryland. I speak in the presence of gentlemen
who can contradict me if they know where to find the authority. And
what was this but homage to the majesty of conscience by a Church which
they wish to establish as a persecuting Church ? That Church, sir, which
the gentleman has come here to prove justifies the murdering of heretics,
was the first to teach a lesson which Protestants have been slow to learn and
imitate, but which the religion they profess should have taught them. But
not these examples alone ; there are hundreds more. At this day, in Bel-
gium, where Protestants are in a minority of one to twelve, the State votes
them an equal portion, and, where their clergy are married, a larger portion,
and that with thev concurrence of the Council and the Catholic bishops.
The gentleman need not tell me of Catholicism I know it well ; and, what
is more, I know Protestantism well ; and I know the professions of good-
will of Protestants do not always correspond with their feelings. But I
should like to know whether or not in Protestantism they find authority for
persecuting to the knife not Catholics alone, but each other, even after they
have proclaimed the right of every man to think for himself. With good
reason, sir, do I contend for conscience ; but they may think a Catholic has
no right to have a conscience at all. They may think, because this system

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 279

is beautiful in their view, that this pretension to conscience on the part of
Catholics ought to be stifled \s a thing not to be admitted at all. But that
will not do. Man, in this country, has a right to the exercise of conscience,
and the man that should raise himself up against it will find that he has
raised himself up against a tremendous opponent. Now, what is it we ask ?
You have heard from beginning to end the arguments on this occasion ; and,
though I may not follow the wanderings of this discussion through all its
minute parts, if I pass over any part, be assured it is not from any desire to
avoid or any inability to refute what has been said against us. I may pass
over many points, but I will not pass over any great principle ; and you
have no doubt given so much attention- to the subject as to enable you, if I
should not recapitulate the whole, to decide justly. It has been urged that,
if you give Catholics that which they now ask, you will give them benefits
which will elevate them above others ; but I contend, most sincerely and
most conscientiously, that we have no such idea ; and when you shall have
granted the portion we claim, if you should be pleased to grant it, I con-
ceive then, and not before, shall we be in the enjoyment of the protection,
and not privilege, to which we are entitled. That is my view of the sub-
ject ; but I have been astonished to perceive the course of argument of the
gentlemen who oppose our claim, generally speaking. What it is they con-
tend for, I cannot determine ; but it seems to be the preservation of the
existing system. They were among the first to disclaim the doctrine that
the end justifies the means ; and if, in attaining their end, they find they
cannot reach it without injustice, then, as conscientious and high-minded
men, they should have paused by the way and have ascertained whether the
means were worthy of them and of our glorious country. Yet, sir, they
have generally overlooked this, and it is no new thing to find that they have
labored to promote the benefit of their own Society at the sacrifice of the
rights of others. Sir, it is the glory of this country that, when it is found
that a wrong exists, there is a power, an irresistible power, to correct the
wrong. They have represented us as contending to bring the Catholic
Scriptures into the public schools. This is not true ; but I shall have occa-
sion to refer more particularly to this by and by. They have represented us
as enemies to the Protestant Scriptures " without note and comment," and
on this subject I know not whether their intention was to make an impres-
sion on your honorable body, or to elicit a sympathetic echo elsewhere ; but,
whatever their object was, they have represented that, even here, Catholics
have not concealed their enmity to the Scriptures. Now, if I had asked this
honorable board to exclude the Protestant Scriptures from the schools, then
there might have been some coloring for the current calumny. But I have
not done so. I say : Gentlemen of every denomination, keep the Scriptures
you reverence, but do not force on me that which my conscience tells me is
wrong. I may be wrong, as you may be ; and as you exercise your judg-
ment, be pleased to allow the same privilege to a fellow-being who must
appear before our common God and answer for the exercise of it. I wish to
do nothing like what is charged upon me ; that is not the purpose for which
we petition this honorable board in the name of the community to which I

280 THE PDBLIO SCHOOL SOCIETY.

belong. I appear here for other objects ; and if our petition be granted, our
schools may be placed under the supervision of the public authorities, or
even of commissioners to be appointed by the Public School Society. They
may be put under the same supervision as the existing schools, to see that
none of those phantoms, nor any grounds for those suspicions which are aa
uncharitable as unfounded, can have existence in reality. There is, then,
but one simple question : Will you compel us to pay a tax from which we
can receive no benefit, and to frequent schools which injure and destroy our
religious rights in the minds of our children, and of which in our con-
sciences we cannot approve ? That is the simple question. Or will you
appoint some other system, or will you leave the children of our denomina-
tion to grow up in that state of ignorance which the School Society has
expressed its desire to save them from ? Or shall the constable be employed,
as one reverend gentleman seems to recommend (Dr. Bangs), or some public
officer, to catch them and send them to school ? For frt>m this moment, in
consequence of the language used, and the insulting passages which those
books contain, Catholic parents will not send their children there, and any
attempts to enforce attendance would meet with vigorous resistance from
them. I have now presented what is in reality the simple issue ; it is no
matter whether we believe right or not, for neither the Catholic nor the
Protestant religion is on trial here ; and I repeat, therefore, that the gentle-
man who represents the Methodist Church has taken so much pains to distil
through the minds of this meeting a mass of prejudice which it will take
several hours, but, at the same time, very little beside, for me to refut^aud
scatter to the winds. I shall, perhaps, not dwell long on that part, because
I judge it is irrelevant to the case in hand, but still I shall feel authorized to
trespass on the patience of the meeting a short time, though but a short
time, to remove the improper prejudice which may have been created.

Now, I start again with a statement of the question, as I did the other
day, and, notwithstanding all the learning theological, legal, medical, and
I know not what beside which has been employed to oppose our position,
and although I have had to meet so many able gentlemen who have been
accustomed to public speaking, I rise in the proud consciousness that not a
solitary principle laid down by me, or laid down in that petition, has been
refuted. I see the question stand precisely where it did before the gentle-
men began to speak, and I see the same false issue and I challenge any gen-
tleman to say that it is not a false issue persevered in to this very hour ;
so that our argument has not been moved one iota. There must, therefore,
be something powerful in our plain, unsophisticated, simple statement, when
all the reasoning brought against it leaves it just where it was before.

I shall now take the gentlemen in order, and follow them according to
the notes which I have taken and my recollection of their arguments, and I
may possibly have some difficulty in avoiding a discursive reply. The first
gentleman (Mr. Sedgwick) who spoke, took up this view : that, if this sys-
tem is wrong, it ought to be overturned entirely. That I leave to the judg-
ment of those with whom the confidence of the people has deposited the
authority. He says that the people have a right to interfere, and to give to

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 281

the children of the State an intellectual education ; that this must be car-
ried out in some form or other, and that this system is as little objectionable
as any that could be presented. That may be ; I do not dispute the possi-
bility of it, because it is unimportant ; but if he did mean to contend that
that system which has been once sanctioned must continue to be sanctioned,
although its sanction was merely by the tacit consent of the different de-
nominations, and although it should become violative of the religious rights
of any, then he goes beyond the limits which even the Constitution of the
land has made sacred. I have been represented as endeavoring to create
excitement on this subject. To that I shall refer immediately ; but I may
here refer to my objection to the existing system, on the ground that it has
a tendency to infidelity, and may observe that I know clergymen of other
denominations who are also opposed to it on the ground of its infidel ten-
dency. There are many who have the conviction that it tends to infidelity,
and who know that the preventive referred to is not equal to stem the ten-
dency to infidelity which does exist.

The first gentleman who spoke, and he spoke with a frankness and sin-
cerity for which I give him credit, contended and, when I answer his objec-
tion, I wish to be understood as speaking to all that took up that objection
and it was urged more or less by the whole that it was inconsistent to
charge upon the system a tendency to infidelity, and then a teaching of
religion, and that this teaching was anti-Catholic. Now, this would be in-
consistent under some circumstances ; but the gentleman left out the grounds
on w^iich that charge was made, and it will be proper, therefore, that I
should state those grounds. In the document which emanated from the
Board of Assistants last spring, they say that the smallest particle of re-
ligion is a disqualification, and that " religious instruction is no part of a
common school education." Now, was it the intention of your honorable
body to exclude all religion ? "Was it the intention of the State Legisla-
ture ? Did any public authority require that the public school education
should be winnowed, as corn on a barn-floor, and all religion driven out by
the winds of heaven as chaff not worthy to be preserved ? "Was there such
authority ? Who made such a decision ? And yet that very decision, I ask
you, if we are not authorized to interpret as proof of the charge, that the
system has a tendency to infidelity ? For, banish religion, and infidelity
alone remains. And, on the other hand, we find the gentlemen of the Pub-
lic School Society themselves repeatedly stating that they inculcate religion,
and give religious impressions, and I say it does them credit ; for, as far as
they can, they ought to teach religion. It would be better if they did for
those who are satisfied with THEIR religious teaching. This explanation
will set us right in the minds of your honorable body. It is first said, no
religion is taught, and then it is admitted that religion is inculcated ; and
next, our petition is opposed because it is alleged that, if our prayer be
granted, religion will be taught. What weight, then, is the objection of the
Public School Society entitled to, if this be the fact ? And where is our
inconsistency ? If there is a dilemma, to whom are we indebted for it but
to the report of the Board of Assistants on the one hand, and to the testi-

282 TUB PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

mony of the Public School Society on the other ? Let us not, then, be
charged with inconsistency.

Now, sir, I contend there is infidelity taught. I do not mean iu its gross
form ; but I have found principles of inferiority in the books, and one that
would pass current as a very amiable book a religious lesson which I would
not suffer a child to read over whom I had any influence. The lesson repre-
sents a father and his son going about, on Sunday morning, to the different
churches, the little boy asking questions as they pass along from one to the
other ; at last the boy said to his father I may not quote the words, but I
shall be found right in substance : " What is the reason there are so many
different sects ? Why do not all people agree to go to the same place, and
to worship God in the same way ? " " And why should it not be so ? "
replied the father. " Why should they agree ? Do not people differ in
other things ? Do they not differ in their taste and their dress ? some like
their coats cut one way, and some another. And do they not differ in their
appetites and food ? and in the hours they keep, and in their diversion ? "
Now, I ask if there is no infidelity in that ? I ask if it is a proper lesson to
teach children, that, as they have a right to form their own tastes for dress
and food, they have the right to judge for themselves in matters of religion ?
for with deference to the Public School Society children are too young to
have such principles instilled into them. Let them grow up before they are
left to exercise their judgment in such weighty matters at least, do not
teach Catholic children such a lesson at so early an age. And, in all I have
said, I desire to be understood as abstaining most carefully from prescribing
any rule, or method, or book, for any denomination with which I am not
connected. But for Catholic children I speak, and I say, it is too early for
them to judge for themselves. And is this all ? No, sir ; one other passage,
and for that there may perhaps be something to be said as to its defence,
because it is from the pen of an eminent Protestant divine, the Bishop of
London. I presume the Bishop of London, when he wrote that passage,
must have been writing on some subject connected with infidelity he must
have been writing against infidelity, and indulging in a range of argument
which might be proper for such a subject, but out of place in the hands of
common school children. What was that passage? Why, it is one which
represents the Divine Redeemer as a man of respectable talents.

Mr. KETCHUM rose, and intimated his doubt of such a passage
being in the books.

The right reverend prelate continued :

I have read it in their books, but the trustees have recalled them I hope
not for the purpose of depriving me of the opportunity of quoting the page.
Such a lesson is now to be found in one of the books, which represents the
Divine Redeemer as showing uncommon quickness of penetration and saga-
city. I ask whether such a lesson is a proper one for children, and whether
such is the instruction to be given to them of the Redeemer of the world ?
The gentleman who first spoke said it was not in reality religion that was

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 283

taught, but mere morality that was inculcated the propriety of telling the
truth, and of fulfilling all moral duties. If this be true, it is still strange
that the School Society should prefer the word " religious." He did not
deny that it was a kind of religion, and that the precepts of the Decalogue
were inculcated ; and while the Public School Society admit that religion is
inculcated, and the legal gentleman, their representative, does not disclaim
it, so far as it forms the groundwork of a good moral character, it may be
taken as admitted. And now, if they teach religion, let us know what it is
to be. Let them not delegate to the teachers some of whom may teach
one religion, some another the authority or permission to make " religious
impressions," to give " religious instruction," to give a " right direction to
the mind of youth," and all the other phrases which we find in their docu-
ments. Now, on the subject of religion and morals, would they teach
morals without religion ? which, I conceive, will be found as visionary as
castle-building in the air. Mr. Ketchum says they are taught not to lie ;
but, without religion, he furnishes no motive for not lying. If a man tells
me not to lie, when it is my interest to lie, I, as a rational being, want a
motive for telling the truth. My love of gain tells me, if I lie, and lie suc-
cessfully, it will add to my fortune ; and if I am told to abstain from lying
at the risk of my fortune, let me have a reason. But if I am told there is a
God to whom I am accountable, that is a motive, but then it is a teaching
of religion. Yes, sir, when I am told there is a God, I am taught religion,
and therefore I am astonished that the report which has gone forth from the
other board should declare that the smallest teaching of religion vitiates the
claim. You may as well think to build an edifice without a foundation, as
to pretend to produce moral effects without religious belief.

There may not be the details of religion, but there must be the principle
to a certain extent, otherwise you cannot lay the foundation of good morals
for men. Now, sir, I will show you that Mr. Stephen Girard, of Philadel-
phia, who had no religious belief whatever, in his will, by which he be-
queathed large sums of money for the purpose of procuring great and mate-
rial benefits to society but which has been looked upon by many Christians
of every denomiuation in Philadelphia rather as a curse than a blessing
even he speaks of morality without religion nearly as the Public School
Society does. He says :

Secondly, I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minis-
ter of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty
whatsoever in the said college ; nor shall any such person ever be admitted
for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the pur-
poses of the said college. On making this restriction, I do not mean to cast
any reflection upon any sect or person whatsoever ; but as there is such a
multitude of sects, and such a diversity of opinion amongst them, I desire
to keep the tender minds of the orphans, who are to derive advantage from
this bequest, free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and secta-
rian controversy are so likely to produce. My desire is, that all the instruct-
ors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instil into the minds of
the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that, on their entrance into
active life, they may, from inclination and habit, evince benevolence toward
their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry ; adopting,

284 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

at tbe same time, such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable
them to prefer.

That, sir, is the policy of Mr. Girard, who had no belief that was known
to others. That was the policy of a man who, so far as was known, was as
much a skeptic as Voltaire or Rousseau. He, by his bounty of two millions
of dollars to the city of Philadelphia, provided that poor orphans should be
brought up to respect infidelity. He did not say a word against religion,
but he took care to stand by, not personally, but by his executors in his
will, to prevent its precepts being inculcated in the minds of those who are
the dependents on his bounty. They were to have the purest principles of
morals instilled into their minds ; but the attempt is vain when religion is
not placed as the foundation of morals.

He, like the Public School Society, stands by to see that the potter shall
give no form to the vase till the clay grows stiff and hardened. Then it will
be too late.

The gentleman also made objections to our schools, because, he said, they
were in our churches. The fact is, we were obliged to provide them where
we could, and our means would permit ; and there are some of them in the
basement of our churches. And he conceived it impossible to keep them
from sectarian influence, because -the children would be within hearing of
the chant of divine service ; as though sectarianism depended on geo-
graphical distances from church. But this could not have been a valid
objection, because the Public School Society has had not only schools under
churches, but in the session-rooms of churches.

I shall refer now to the learned gentleman who followed him (Mr.
Ketchum) ; and I can only say that this gentleman, with a great deal of
experience in this particular question, really seems to me to confirm all I say
on the ground we have taken. I know he lectured me pretty roundly on
the subject of attending the meetings held under St. James' Church. I
know he did more for me than the pope : the pope " mitred " me but once,
but he did so three or four times during the course of his address. He read
me a homily on the duties of station ; and he so far forgot his country and
her principles as to call it a " descent " on my part when I mingled in a
popular meeting of freemen. But it was no descent ; and I hope the time
will never come when it will be deemed a descent for a man in office to min-
gle with his fellow-citizens when convened for legitimate and honorable pur-
poses.

But, from his speech, it would appear that his experience has been ob-
tained by the discharge of the duty of standing advocate of denial ; and
yet, with all his experience and opportunities of research, his inability to
overturn our grounds confirms me in the conviction that they are not to be
removed, even by the aid of splendid talents ; for that speech, like most
others, went on the false issue that we want privileges. But we want no
* privilege. That speech, like the speech from the throne, might have been
the speech of years past, and might have been stereotyped ; for its only nov-
.elty, which proved to me that it was not all the work of antiquity, was the
part which appertained to myself. And not only that, but I have to say

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 285

that, when I came into this hall and it is the first time I ever stood in an
assembly of this description I felt that I was thrown on the hospitality of
the professional gentlemen ; and I think, if I and that gentleman could have
exchanged places, I should not have looked so hard at him as he did at me.
In fact, throughout that speech he, with peculiar emphasis and a manner
which he may perhaps have acquired in his practice in courts of law, fixed
upon me. a steady gaze and he has no ordinary countenance and addressed
me so solemnly, that I really expected every moment he would forget him-
self, and say, " The prisoner at the bar." He did not, however. He passed
that over; and, whilst I recognize and respect the "human face divine,"
because God made it to look upward, I may here observe, that it has no
power to frighten me, even if it would be terrible ; and therefore I was not
at all disturbed by the hard looks which he gave me. The gentleman will
pardon me, I hope, in this, for it is natural enough, after what has been said
though I know it was said in good humor to claim the privilege to
retort.

Well, sir, this was not all, but he told us something about going to the
stake. He was sure, if any of the public money was voted to the denomi-
nation of a reverend gentleman whose name I will not mention, the Catho-
lics would go to the stake. Now, sir, we have no intention to do so. We
know the public money does go to the support of religion ; it goes to the
support of chaplaincies, theological seminaries, universities, and chaplains
of institutions whose appointments are permanent ; and be it remembered,
that one of the first lectures delivered in one institution the University of
this city which was aided from the public funds, was on the anti-republi-
can tendency of popery. And yet we did not go to the stake for that ; and
why ? Because, though our portion of taxation mingles with the rest, we
have no objections to the use of it which the law prescribes, so long as no
inalienable rights of our own are involved in the sacrifice.

But again, he said, if any of the money was appropriated to the Catho-
lic religion, Protestants would go to the stake. I will not say whether Prot-
estants are so exclusive. While we submit to taxation for Protestant pur-
poses without going to the stake, whether, if we participate, they will go to
the stake, is not for me to say.

Then he came to the Protestant Bible, "without note or comment ; " and
" it was hard for him to part with that translated Bible." He stood by it,
and repeated that " it was hard to give up the Bible ; " just as if I had said
one word against it, and as if I was about to bring the pope to banish it out
of the Protestant world, or wished to deprive any man who venerates it of
any use he may think proper to make of it. And there, again, he looked so
much as if he were in earnest, that, at one time, I thought he was actually
about to rush to the " stake." But there was no stake there to go to, except
that which he holds in the exchequer of the Public School Society. It is a
most comfortable way of going to martyrdom.

Sir, the gentleman taunted me for having attended the public meetings
of Catholics on this subject, and he imputed the prejudice which exists
against the public school system to the observations I have made, as though

286 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

it were of ray creation. In answer to that, I may state what has been the
fact for years that Catholics have been struggling to have schools, and to
the extent of their means we have them ; and what is the reason ? Do you
suppose that we should impose additional burdens upon ourselves, if we
were satisfied with those public schools ? Do you suppose we should have
paid for our bread a second time, if that which these schools offered had
not, in our opinion, been turned to a stone ? No ; the existence of our own
schools proves that I have not excited the prejudice ; but still it is at all
times my duty to warn my people against that which is destructive or vio-
lative to the religion they profess ; and if they abandon their religion, they
are free ; but so long as they are attached to our religion, it is my duty, as
their pastor, as the faithful guardian of their principles and morals, to warn
them when there is danger of imbibing poison instead of wholesome food.
That is the reason ; and I am sorry that he has not found a motive less un-
worthy of me than that he has been pleased to assign.

Then and I may as well take up the question now as elsewhere it has
been said that it is conceived to be an inconsistency in our argument, that
we object to the public schools because religion is taught in them ; and yet,
in the schools which we propose to establish, or, rather, which we have
established, but for which we now plead, we profess to teach no sectarian-
ism ; and the question arises, " If you are opposed to religion in these
schools because it is sectarianism, how can you teach religion in your
schools, and yet your schools not be sectarian ? " This is the position in
which they place us ; and, in answer, I have to state that, in the first place,
we do not intend to teach religion. We shall be willing that they shall be
placed under the same inspection that the public schools are now ; and if it
should be found that religion is taught, we will be willing that you shall cut
them off. You shall be the judges. You may see that the law is complied
with, and if we violate it, let us be deprived of the benefits for which the
conditions were prescribed. But there is neutral ground on which our chil-
dren may learn to read and cipher. If they read, it must be something that
is written ; words are signs of ideas, and, in the course of their instruction,
they may be made so to shape their studies as to loathe Catholicism without
learning any other religion. And this could be produced not alone in refer-
ence to Catholics, but Presbyterians, Methodists, Unitarians, or any other.
They might find that their children disregard their own religion, while they
are not taught any other. Suppose the Presbyterians, or any other denomi-
nation, were in the minority, and Catholics were numerically what Protes-
tants are now, and therefore were able to decide what lessons their children
should read in these schools, I ask you if the gentleman would not conceive
he had reasonable objections, if they had forced upon them a system of edu-
cation which teaches that their denomination, past, present, and to come,
was deceitful f Now, take up these books, which teach all that is infamous
in our history which teach our children about the " execution of Cran-
mer," the burning of Huss, and " the character of Luther." If such a prac-
tice were reversed, what would he do ?

Now, iu our schools I would teach them I would give our children les-

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 287

sons for exercise in reading that should teach them that, when the young
tree of American liberty was planted, it was watered with Catholic blood,
and that therefore we have as much right to every thing common in this
country as others. I should teach them that Catholic bishops and Catholic
barons at Runneymede wrung the charter of 'our liberties the grandparent
of all known liberty in the world from the hands of a tyrant. I should
teach them where to find the bright spots on our history, though the gentle-
man who represents the Methodists knew not where they were to be found.
This I would do ; and should I violate the law ? If, instead of the burning
of Huss, I gave them a chapter on the character of Charles Carroll of Car-
rollton as a reading-lesson, would that be teaching them of purgatory, and
the doctrine of transubstantiation ?

But if our circumstances were reversed, so that Catholics controlled the
public schools, would not Presbyterians have a right to complain ? And
should not we be tyrants while we refused to listen to their complaints, if
we spread before tJieir children lessons on the burning of Servetus by Calvin,
and on the hangings of members of the Society of Friends by those who
held Calvin's doctrines ? I should listen to their appeal in such a case with
feelings far different from those manifested by them in regard to others.
But I would do more, in order that those little vagrants of whom the gen-
tleman speaks might come into school. Their parents themselves having
by persecution been deprived, in many instances, of an education, do not
fully appreciate its advantages, and if you seek to enforce the attendance of
their children, they will resist ; if you attempt to coerce them, you will not
succeed. But if you put them in a way to be admitted without being
dragged by force to the school, or without destroying their religious prin-
ciples when they enter (which you have no right to do), then you w,ill pre-
pare good citizens, educated to the extent that will make them useful to
their country. Then their parents, having confidence in their pastors, will
send their children to schools approved of by them ; and the children them-
selves may attend schools where they need not be ashamed of their creed,
and where their companions will not call them " papists," and tell them that
ignorance and vice are the accompaniments of their religion. That will be
the result, and I conceive it will be beneficial.

Much has been said about the distinction between morality and religion,
and about those certain broad principles on which it is thought all can
agree. And yet our opponents contend, and I am surprised at the circum-
stance gentlemen who are not only Christians themselves, but Christian
ministers contend all through for the rights of those who are not of the
Christian religion, but are commonly called infidels. An attempt has been
made to draw a distinction between morality and religion. I have already
said and there is not a gentleman here who will pretend to deny it that
morality must rest on religion for its basis. I refer you and it is not an
ordinary authority to a man who passed through life with the most beau-
tiful character and the most blameless reputation that ever fell to the lot of
a public man ; one who was distinguished almost above all other men ; one
of whom it would be profane to say that he was inspired, yet of whom his-

288 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tory has not handed down one useless action, or one single idle word a man
who left to his country an inheritance of the "brightest example and the fair-
est name that ever soldier or statesman bequeathed to a nation : that man
was George Washington. Hear what he says, in his Farewell Address, on
the attempt now being made to preserve morality, whilst religion is dis-
carded from the public schools :

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man
claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pil-
lars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citi-
zens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and
to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with pri-
vate *nd public felicity. Let it be simply asked, Where is the security for
property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligations desert
the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ?
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be main-
tained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of
lefiued education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both
forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of reli-
gious principle.

'Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of
popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to
every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can
look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric ?

Such is the warning, the solemn warning, of this great man. If you
take away religion, on what foundation do you propose to rear the structure
of morality ? No ; they stand to each other in the relation of parent and
offspring ; or, rather, they are kindred principles from the same Divine
source ; and what God has joined together let no man put asunder.

Now, with regard to all said by me against the Protestant Bible, I appeal
to this honorable body whether I ever said one word hostile to that Bible ;
and yet, from the address of the gentlemen on the other side, men abroad,
who should read their speeches, would be led to believe that I not only
entertained, but that I had uttered, sentiments of hostility to that work.
And it is ever thus that our principles and our feelings are misrepresented,
while gentlemen profess to be conscious of entertaining no prejudice against
us as Catholics. One gentleman, however, avowed his hostility to us on this
ground, and for his candor I tender my acknowledgment. The whole effort
of some of the gentlemen indeed, of all who have spoken on the subject
has been, to show that the system must be made so broad and liberal that
all can agree in it. But I think they contend for too much, when they wish
so to shape religion and balance it on its pedestal as to make it suit every
body and every sect ; for it infidels are to be suited, and it is made to recon-
cile them to the system, I want to know whether Catholics, or any other
class, are not entitled to the right to. -have it made to suit them ? And if
every body is to be made satisfied, why is it that Catholic? and others are
discontented and excluded ? Is it not manifest that what they profess to
accomplish is beyond their reach ? Now, the infidels have found able advo-
cates in the reverend gentlemen who have spoken in the course of this dis-
cussion I mean the interests of infidelity j and why is it, then, that the

SPEEOH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 289

gentlemen who plead for that side of the question enter their protest against
ours ? I should like to know why there is this inconsistency. If the rule is
to be general, why is it not general ?

I pass, now, to the reasoning of one learned gentleman who spoke yester-
day, and defended the Protestant Bible. Now, this was unnecessary in that
gentleman ; it was in him a work of supererogation to vindicate the Protes-
tant Scriptures ; it was useless to defend a point which had not been at-
tacked. It was time lost ; and yet, perhaps, not altogether lost, for, in some
respects, it may have been profitable enough. In entering on its defence, he
said it was the instrument of human liberty throughout the world ; wherever
it was, there was light and liberty ; and where it was not, there was bond-
age and darkness ; and he brought it round so that he almost asserts that
our Declaration of Independence had been copied from the Bible. No doubt
the just and righteous principles on which that Declaration has its founda-
tion have their sanction in the Bible ; but I deny their immediate connec-
tion, and on historical grounds, for it is known that its author looked upon
St. Paul as an impostor ; consequently their connection is not historically
true. But white the gentleman referred to our notes (but which we disown
and repudiate) as containing principles of persecution, how was it that,
after the Protestant Bible, " without note and comment," came into use,
every denomination of Protestants in the whole world that had the misfor-
tune for 'it must have been a misfortune to be yoked to civil power,
wielded the sword of persecution, and derived their authority for BO doing
from the naked text ? Yes, in Scotland, in all her confessions of faith, in
England and I appeal to her penal laws against Catholics, and those acts
by which the Puritans and Dissenters were pursued men who had the mis-
fortune, like ourselves, to have a conscience, were driven out, and all was
done on the authority of the Bible, without note or comment, and for the
public good, and the good of the Church. I do not say that the Bible sanc-
tioned persecution, but I deny that the absence of notes is an adequate pre-
ventive. I refer to history. And almost to this day, though the Bible has
been translated three hundred years, even in liberal governments, the iron
heel of persecution has been placed on the dearest rights of Catholics. The
gentleman to whom I allude said, no doubt, what he knew would be popu-
lar out of doors ; for he seems, with others, to imagine that the world began
at the period of the Reformation. He seems to think that every thing great
originated at that period. But does he not know that eight hundred edi-
tions of the Bible had been printed before the Reformation ? And does he
not know that two hundred editions had been circulated in the common
tongue, in the common language of the country ? And has he yet to learn
that the first prohibition to read the Bible came not from a jCatholic, but
from a Protestant from Protestant Henry VHI. of " glorious memory " ?
He was the first to issue a prohibition ; and it was not till Catholics saw the
evil not of the Bible, but the bad uses men were making of the Bible
that they placed its perusal under certain restrictions, and cautioned their
people against hastily judging of it for themselves. All had been united
and harmonious, but by the use, or abuse, which men made of the Bible, all
19

290 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

became doubt and speculation, and the positive revelation of Christ was
shaken or destroyed. They saw this Bible, and what then ? But, while
these school gentlemen contend that it is a shield against infidelity, and that
all sects here agree, how is it out of the schools ? Why, no sects agree upon
it. How is it that the Bible, which is given by the inspiration of God, the
God of truth, is made use of, in this city even, to prove a Trinity and to
disprove a Trinity ? How is it that Trinitarians quote it to prove their doc-
trines, and Unitarians quote it to establish the opposite doctrines ? How is
it that, whilst one says from the Bible that God. the Father is God alone,
and that Christ is not equal to Him, for He says, " The Father is greater
than I," another argues from the same Bible that the Father and Son are
equal, because Christ says, " The Father and I are one " ? And another
comes with the Bible in his hand, and says, " I believe and I can prove it
from this Bible that Christ alone is the Almighty God, and the Father and
the Spirit are only attributes of the same person 1 " Why, this Bible, which
they say is the foundation of all truth and they say well, when it is truly
understood ; a grace which God can vouchsafe, and no doubt He does to
many this Bible is harmonious in its every doctrine. But this is not the
point ; the point is, the uses we see men make of it ; and this is the sum of
our reason that we wish our children not to be taught in the manner in
which Protestant children are taught in reference to the Bible.

And then, again, if you teach that there is a hell, according to the Bible,
others will contend that the Scriptures teach no such doctrine. And so I
might pass on to other points to show you, whilst they thus contend for the
Bible as the guide to truth, there is this disagreement among them, at least
in this country, where human rights and liberties are understood, as allow-
ing every man to judge for himself. Is there not, then, danger is there not
ground to apprehend that, when our children read this Bible, and find that
all these different sects father all their contradictions on the Bible as their
authority, they will derive their first notions of infidelity from these circum-
stances ? But there is another ground on which it is manifest we cannot
allow our children to be taught by them. Whilst we grant them "the right
to take, if they please, the Protestant Bible as the rule of their faith, and
the individual right to judge of the Bible and this great principle they
proclaim as the peculiar and distinctive and most glorious trait in their
religious character dnd history and let them boast of it ; there is no diffi-
culty on the subject they interpret the Bible by the standard of reason, and
therefore, as there is no given standard of reason, as one has more and an-
other less, they scarcely ever arrive at the same result ; while the Bible, the
eternal Word of God, remains the same. But this is not a Catholic princi-
ple. Catholics do not believe that God has vouchsafed the promise of the
Holy Spirit to every individual, but that He has given His Spirit to teach
the Church collectively, and to guide the Church, and therefore we do not
receive as the Bible 'except what the Church guarantees; and wanting this
guarantee, the Methodist gentleman failed to establish the book which he
produced, with its notes, as a Catholic Bible. We do not take the Bible on
the authority of a "king's printer" who is a speculating publisher, who

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 291

publishes it but as a speculation. And why ? Because, by the change of a
single comma, that which is positive may be made negative, and vice-versa, ;
and then is it the Bible of the inspired writers ? It is not. They proclaim,
then, that theirs is a Christianity of reason; of this they boast; and let
them glory. Ours is a Christianity of faith ; ours descends by the teaching
of the Church. We are never authorized to introduce new doctrines, be-
cause we contend that no new doctrine is true from the time of the apostles,
unless it has come from the mind of God by a special revelation ; and, to us,
that is not manifest among the reformers. We are satisfied to trust our eter-
nal interests, for weal or woe, on the security of that Catholic Church and
the veracity of the Divine promises. You perceive, therefore, that Protes-
tants may agree in the system where this Bible is thus introduced ; but it is
not in accordance with the principles of Catholics that each one shall derive
therefrom his own notions of Christianity. It is not the principle of Catho-
lics, because they believe in the incompetence of individual reason in mat-
ters of such importance. It is from this self-sufficiency and imputed capa-
city that men derive such notions of self-confidence, which, owing to a want
of power to control in some domestic circles, if taught to our children, lead
to disobedience and disregard of the parental authority.

I have been obliged to enter into this, which is rather theological than
otherwise, to put you in possession of the true ground. We do not take the
Protestant Bible, but we do not wish others not to take it if they desire it.
If conscience be stifled, you do not make us better men or better citizens ;
and therefore I say, gentlemen, respect conscience, even though you think it
in error, provided it does not conflict with the public rights. I have sufii-
ciently disposed of the addresses of the two legal gentlemen who have spo-
ken. I will now call the attention of .this honorable body to the remarks
of the reverend gentleman who spoke in relation to the Rhemish Testament.
I did use, sir, yesterday, an expression which I used with reluctance ; but
when we were charged before this honorable body when the reverend gen-
tleman who represents a numerous denomination charged us with teaching
the lawfulness of murdering heretics, that expression came on me as a thun-
derbolt ; because I thought that truth should proceed from the lips of age
and a man of character. And, sir, I knew that position was not true, and
that it was an easy matter to assert a thing, but not so easy to disprove it.
I might take advantage of circumstances to charge a man with things that
it would take weeks to disprove, and therefore I thought it necessary to nail
that slanderous statement to the counter before it could have its designed
influence here or elsewhere. That gentleman began with great humility, and
with professions of being devoid of prejudice, and then he said that those
meetings to which he referred, and which he called " public gatherings,"
had caused him to feel greatly alarmed about this question; as if the sta-
bility of -your republic was endangered, provided Catholic children received
the benefits of a common school education ! He said I had applied certain
remarks to the creed of the Society of Friends ; and though, perhaps, it
was somewhat out of order, but wishing to set the gentleman right, I denied
that I had done so. But since then the reporter has handed me the notes

292 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

taken of what I did say, and from them also it appears that I said no such
thing. He referred to the practice of teaching religion in the schools ; but
of that I have disposed already.

He then, while going through the introductory part of the remonstrance
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, threw out constantly calumnious charges
against the Catholic Church and the Catholic religion. He did not throw
them out as assertions, but by inuendo, as " if it be true," and " I should'
like to know " ; as if I am here for the purpose of supplying every thing
he would u like to know." And how can I meet him, when insinuation is
the form in which his charges are thrown out ? Why, their very feebleness
takes from an opponent the power of refutation. But when he comes to
something tangible, then I can meet him. Having gone through a series of
insinuations, he misrepresents our intentions. Notwithstanding we disclaim
such an intention, he indulges in the gratuitous supposition that, if your
honorable body should grant our petition, we shall secretly teach the Catho-
lic religion. But if we do, is not the law as potent against us as against
the public schools ? If they teach religion, as they acknowledge, why may
not we ? We are not grasping to obtain power over others, but we desire in
sincerity to benefit a portion of our own neglected children. I shall pass
over, therefore, a great deal of what the gentleman " would like to know,"
for I do not know if it is of importance to the subject. He said this
Rhemish Testament was published by authority ; but he began by a retreat,
and not by a direct charge. " He did not profess to say that our Church
approved of it ; but it was printed and published, and it was not on the
Index" as if every bad book in the world must be in the Index; and,
with this evidence of fact, he comes here and spreads before the American
people the slander and calumny that the Catholics, by their notes and com-
ments, teach the lawfulness of murdering heretics. Now, sir, I will take up
that book, and the parts he read, with the notes giving an explanation, as
though they came from Catholics. Do you know the history of that book,
sir ? If not, I can tell you. When Queen Elizabeth scourged the Catholics
from their altars, and drove them into exile, these men held a common no-
tion, which was natural and just, that England was their country, and that
they were suffering unmerited persecution. The new religion, net satisfied
with toleration for itself, grasped the substance of things grasped the
power of the State, seized all their temples, and, not even satisfied with this,
scourged the Catholics from their home and country ; and they did write
these notes and why ? They wrote them in exile, smarting under the lash
and the torture, and in connection, too, with a plan for the invasion of Eng-
land by Philip H. of Spain. Their object was, to disseminate amongst
Catholics of England disaffection to Queen Elizabeth, and thus dispose them
to join the true Catholic and oppose the heretics, because the heretics were
their enemies were the enemies of their rights, and had crushed them.
But when that book appeared in England, was there a single approval given
it a single Catholic that received it? Not one. When it was published
for political ends to aid the invasion of Philip did the English Catholics
receive it ? Never. But the gentleman said it was published by the bish-

SPEECH OF BISIIOP HUGHES. 293

ops of Ireland and with, their approbation, and with the approbation of a
great number of the Catholic clergy ; and this after his own admission that,
insomuch as it had not been approved by the Holy See, the bishop of Rome,
it was not of authority in the Catholic Church. Now, I shall take up both
parts ; and first, I should like to know where is his authority that it was
published by the bishops of Ireland ? I pause for a reply, and I shall not
consider it an interruption.

Dr. BOND. Do you wish an answer ?

Bishop HUGHES. I do, sir ; I desire your authority.

Dr. BOND. Why, if we are to believe history, it is true ; it is stated in
the British Critic.

Bishop HUGHES. Oh ! I am satisfied.

Dr. BOND. It could not have been reviewed if it did not exist.

Bishop HUGHES. Oh ! it is here, and that proves its existence without
the British Critic. It was gone out of print again, and not a Catholic now
heard of it, but your liberal Protestant clergymen of New York republished
it. What for ? To bring infamy on the Catholic name. And it was from
this Protestant edition, and not from Ireland, that the Methodist gentleman
received it. I am now not surprised at his saying so often that he would
" like to know," for a little more knowledge would be of great advantage
to him. I need not read it.

Dr. BOND. Oh ! you had better.

Bishop HUGHES. Well, sir, any thing to accommodate you.

It is a remarkable fact, that, notwithstanding the Vulgate New " Testa-
ment, as it was translated and expounded by the members of the Jesuit col-
lege at Rheims, in 1582, has been republished in a great number of editions,
and their original annotations, either more or less extensively, have been
added to the text ; yet, as soon as it is appealed to as an authority, the Ro-
man priests admit both the value of the book and the obligation of the
papists to believe its contents. We have a very striking modern instance to
prove this deceitfulness.

Now, it must be recollected that this is a Protestant publication ; the
Catholics did not circulate it, but the Protestant ministers did, to mislead
their flocks, and to bring infamy on their Catholic fellow-citizens.

The Douay Bible is usually so called because, although the New Testa-
ment was first translated and published at Rheims, yet the Old Testament
was printed, some years after, at Douay ; the English Jesuits having removed
their monastery from Rheims to Douay before their version of the Old Tes-
tament was completed. In the year 1816, an edition, including both the
Douay Old and the Rhemish New Testament, was issued at Dublin, contain-
ing a large number of comments replete with impiety, irreligion, and the
most fiery persecution. That edition was published under the direction of
all the dignitaries of the Roman hierarchy in Ireland, and about three hun-
dred others of the most influential subordinate priests.

Now, I called for the gentleman's evidence for this, and the gentleman
was found mimts Jiabens he has it not to give. The prints said so, and he
believed the prints ! Now, sir, this is a grave charge, and I am disposed to
treat it gravely ; but I should not feel worthy of the name of a man I

294: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

should feel myself unworthy of being a member of the American family, if
I had not risen and repelled such a charge as it deserved.

Dr. BOND. You have not read all I read.

Bishop HUGHES. I will read all the gentleman may wish, if he will not
keep me here reading all night.

The notes which urged the hatred and murder of Protestants attracted
the attention of the British Churches, and, to use the words of T. Hartwell
Home, that edition of the Rhemish Testament printed at Dublin in 1816,
corrected and revised and approved by Dr. Troy, Roman Catholic arch-
bishop of Dublin, was reviewed by the British Critic, vol viii., pp. 296-308,
New Series, and its dangerous tenets, both civil and religious, were exposed.

That is the testimony.

Dr. BOND. There is another paragraph.

Bishop HUGHES. Well, I will read the other.

This publication, with many others of a similar character, produced so
great an excitement in Britain, that, finally, several of the most prominent
of the Irish Roman prelates were called before the English Parliament to
prove their own work. Then, and upon ofith, with all official solemnity,
they peremptorily disclaimed the volumes published by their own instiga-
tion and under their own supervision and auspices, as books of no author-
ity, because they had not been ratified by the pope and received by the
whole papal Church.

Now, what authority have we for this charge of perjury against the Irish
bishops, better than the gentleman's own ? It is so stated here. What
authority is there for that ?

Dr. BOND. It was so stated before the British Parliament.

Bishop HUGHES. I should regret, on account of your age, if I used any
expression that might be deemed harsh.

Dr. BOND. Take the liberty to say what you please.

Bishop HUGHES. With regard to these notes, I have to observe, that
they were written in an age (1582) when the rights of conscience were but
little understood. Protestants in that age everywhere persecuted not only
Catholics, but each other. And, long after, the Puritans of New England,
with the Bible, and without notes, persecuted with torture, and even to
hanging, their fellow-Protestants. It was not wonderful, therefore, if, in
such an age, Catholics were found to entertain the opinions set forth in the
notes. But, bad as they are, it is remarkable that they do not sustain the
calumnious charge of the reverend gentleman, that they " teach the lawful-
ness of murdering heretics.

And now, sir, let me call your attention to the book itself.

In the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew there is this text, at the 29th
verse. It occurs in the parable of the cockle (in the Protestant version
tares) and the wheat, in answer to Christ's disciples, who asked : " Wilt
thou that we gather it up ? And he said, No : lest, perhaps, gathering up
the cockles, you may root up the wheat also together with it." The annota-
tion on this is :

Ver. 29." Lett you pluck up also. The good must tolerate the evil, when

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 295

it is so strong that it cannot be redressed without danger and disturbance
of the whole Church, and commit the matter to God's judgment in the
latter day. Otherwise, where ill men, be they heretics or other malefactors,
may be punished or suppressed without disturbance and hazard of the good,
they may and ought by public authority, either spiritual or temporal, to be
chastised or executed.

They may and ought " by public autJwrity ! " Why, the proposition of
the gentleman was, that Catholics were taught to kill their Protestant
neighbors. Now, there is not throughout the whole volume a proposition
so absurd as the idea conveyed by him. Bad as the notes are, they reqxiire
falsification to bear him out.

Again, Luke, ninth chapter, verses 54, 55 : " And when his disciples
James and John had seen it, they said, Lord, wilt thou we say that fire come
down from heaven, and consume them ? And turning, he rebuked them,
saying, You know not of what spirit you are." Annotation :

Ver. 55. He rebuked them. Not justice nor all rigorous punishment of
sinners is here forbidden, nor Elias' fact reprehended, nor the Church
or Christian princes blamed for putting heretics to death. But none of
these should be done for desire of our particular revenge, or without dis-
cretion, and regard of their amendment, and example to others. Therefore
Pete,' used his power upon Ananias and Saphira, when he struck them both
down to death for defrauding the Church.

I am afraid I shall fatigue this honorable body by going over these
notes, nor is it necessary that I should follow the gentleman in all his dis-
cursive wanderings. There is nothing in this to authorize the murdering
of heretics.

But again, Luke, fourteenth chapter, verse 23 : " And the Lord said to
the servant, Go forth unto the ways and hedges, and compel them to enter,
that my house may be filled." Annotation :

Compel them. The vehement persuasion that God useth, both externally
by force of His word and miracles, and internally by His grace, to bring
us unto Him, is called compelling. Not that He forceth any to come to
Him against their wills, but that He can alter and mollify a hard heart,
and make him willing that before would not. Augustine also referreth
this compelling to the penal laws, which Catholic princes do justly use
against heretics and schismatics, proving that they who are, by their former
profession in baptism, subject to the Catholic Church, and are departed from
the same after sects, may and ought to be compelled into the unity and
society of the universal Church again : and therefore, in this sense, by the
two former parts of the parable, the Jews first, and secondly the Gentiles,
that never believed before in Christ, were invited by fair, sweet means only :
but by the third, such are invited as the Church of God hath power over,
because they promised in baptism, and therefore are to be revoked, not only
by gentle means, but by just punishment also.

Sir, the punishment of spiritual offences, and the allusions here made to
it, have their roots too deep and too widespreading to be entered into and
discussed in the time that I could occupy this evening. It would be impos-
sible to go over the historical grounds which suggest themselves in connec-
tion with the subject, to show the results to the state of society which grow
unavoidably out of the breaking up of the Roman empire, and the incur-

296 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

sion of new and uncivilized nations and tribes. Society had been dissolved,
with all the order and laws of the ancient civilization. It was the slow
work of the Church to reorganize the new and crude materials to gather
and arrange the fragments to remodel society and social institutions as best
she might. There was no other power that could digest the crude mass, the
fierce infusions of other tongues and tribes and nations that had, during the
chaos, become mixed up with the remains of ancient Roman civilization.
She had to begin by religion, their conversion to Christianity being the first
step, and the Catholic Church being the only one in existence. Hence, the
laws of religion are the first with which those new populations became ac-
quainted, and the only ones that could restrain them. Hence, too, what is
called Canon Law went before, and Civil Law gradually followed, oftentimes
mixed with and deriving its force from the older form of legislation. The
actual state of society made it unavoidable that this should be the order of
things. Civil governments oftentimes engrafted whole branches of the
ecclesiastical law in their secular codes; and ecclesiastical judges were often
the interpreters and administrators of both.

Canonical law and civil law, thus blended, became the codes of civil
government, from the necessity of the case ; and it is to this state of things
.that the authors of the notes make allusion in their text. But, as I have
remarked, the subject is too deep to be properly discussed, on this occasion,
when time is so brief, and so many speakers to' be replied to.

We now come to Acts, chapter twenty-five, verse 11 :

I appeal to Cwsar. If Paul, both to save himself from whipping and
from death, sought by the Jews, doubted not to cry for honor of the Roman
laws, and to appeal to Cajsar, the Prince of the Romans, not yet christened,
how much more may we call for aid of Christian princes and their laws, for
the punishment of heretics, and for the Church's defence against them.
August. Epist. 50.

Here you see the working of human interest ; and it is not the first time
among Protestants and Catholics, nor will it be the last, that men have made
the Word of God and sacred things a stepping-stone to promote temporal
interests. They say there, " Heretics have banished us, and is it not natu-
rally the interest of Catholics to join a Catholic prince to put down our
stern persecutors? " As if 'they had said to their fellow-Catholics of Eng-
land, A Catholic prince will soon make a descent on our country ; it will be
your duty, as it is your interest, to join in putting down the heretic Eliza-
beth, who has driven us from our country.

I go now to Hebrews, chapter ten, verse 29 : " How nauch more, think
you, doth he deserve worse punishments which hath trodden the Son of God
under foot, and esteemed the blood of the Testament polluted wherein he is
sanctified, and hath done contrarily to the spirit of grace ? " Annotation :

The Mood of the Testament. Whosoever makcth no more account of the
blood of Christ's sacrifice, either as shed upon the cross, or as in the chalice
of the altar for our Saviour calleth that also the blood of the New Testa-
ment than he doth of the blood of calves and goats, or of other common
drinks, is worthy of death, and God will in the next life, if it be not pun-
ished here, revenge it with grievous punishment.

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 297

" God will in the next life punish ! " Why, after all, bad as these notes
are, objectionable and scorned and repudiated as they were by the Catholics
of England bad as they are, they do not sustain the gentleman whose
assertion has gone as far beyond the truth, as it is infinitely beyond charity.
I do not find the notes from the Apocalypse, which would have gone to
show, in like manner, that, bad as they were, they do not support the accu-
sations made.

Dr. BOND. There are others as well.

Bishop HUGHES. Well, I will give you the rest.

The PRESIDENT. Perhaps it is not necessary. But, if they are, it is not
necessary to interrupt the gentleman.

Bishop HUGHES. Such, then, sir, are the notes put by the Catholic
translators of the New Testament at Rheims in 1582 smarting, as they
were, under the lash of Elizabeth's persecution, and looking forward with
hope to the result of the invasion by Philip H. They were repudiated in-
dignantly by the Catholics of England and Ireland from the first ; and were
out of print, until some Protestant ministers of New York had them pub-
lished in order to mislead the people and to excite odium against the Cath-
olic name.

But here, sir, is the acknowledged Testament of all Catholics who speak
the English language. This is known and may be read by any one; it is
the fourteenth edition in this country ; it corresponds with those used in
England and Ireland ; and if any such notes can be found in it, then be-
lieve Catholics to be what they have been falsely represented to be.

But the reverend gentleman disclaims originating the slander. He took
it, we are told, from the British Critic ; as if that which is false must be-
come true from the moment it is put in type and printed. But, sir, he
should have known that the article in the British Critic was refuted at the
time, and has been since refuted in the Dublin Review. And it so happens
that Dr. Troy, then Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, and who is here repre-
sented as having approved these notes, had to sustain a lawsuit with the
Dublin publisher, who was also a Protestant not for approving the work,
but for DENOUNCING it, which destroyed the publisher's speculation, and in-
ilved a suit against the Archbishop for damages ! ! This is attested by
jjr. Troy's letter, now before me, and by the legal proceedings, and in a
speech made by Daniel O'Connell to the Catholic Board at the time (1817),
we find the following :

From the Dublin Evening Post of the Sth of December, 1817.
CATHOLIC BOARD. THE RHEMISH BIBLE.

A remarkably full meeting of the Catholic board took place on Thursday
last, pursuant to adjournment ; Owen O'Conner, Esq., in the chair.

After some preliminary business, Mr. O'Connell rose to make his prom-
ised motion for the appointment of a committee to prepare a denunciation
of the intolerant doctrines contained in the Rhemish notes.

Mr. O'Connell said that, on the last day of meeting, he gave notice that
he would move for a committee to draw up a disavowal of the very danger-
ous and uncharitable doctrines contained in certain notes to the Rhemish
Testament. He now rose to submit that motion to the consideration of the

298 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

board. The late edition of the Rhemish Testament in this country gave
rise to much observation. That work was denounced by Dr. Troy ; an ac-
tion is now depending between him and a respectable bookseller in this
city ; and it would be the duty of the board not to interfere, in the remotest
degree, with the subject of that action ; but, on the other hand, the board
could not let the present opportunity pass by of recording their sentiments
of disapprobation and even of abhorrence of the bigoted and intolerant
doctrines promulgated in that work. Their feelings of what was wise, con-
sistent, and liberal, would suggest such a proceeding, even though the in-
decent calumnies of their enemies had not rendered it indispensible. A
work called The British Critic had, no doubt, been read by some gentlemen
who heard him. The circulation of the last number has been very exten-
sive, and exceeded, almost beyond calculation, the circulation of any former
number, in consequence of an article which appeared in it on the late edi-
tion of the Rhemish Testament. He (Mr. O'Connell) said he read that arti-
cle ; it is extremely unfair and uncandid ; it gives, with audacious falsehood,
passages, as if from the notes of the Rhemish Testament, which cannot be
found in that work ; and, with mean cunning, it seeks to avoid detection by
quoting, without giving either text or page. Throughout it is written in
the true spirit of the inquisition ; it is violent, vindictive, and uncharitable.
He was sorry to understand that it was written by ministers of the Estab-
lished Church ; but he trusted that, when the charge of intemperance should
be again brought forward against the Catholics, their accusers would cast
their eyes on this coarse and illiberal attack here they may find a specimen
of real intemperance. But the very acceptable work of imputing principles
to the Irish people which they never held, and which they abhor, was not
confined to The British, Critic. The Courier, a newspaper whose circulation
is immense, lent its hand, and the provincial newspapers throughout Eng-
land those papers which are forever silent when any thing might be said
favorable to Ireland, but are ever active to disseminate whatever may tend
to her disgrace or dishonor. They have not hesitated to impute to the
Catholics of this country the doctrines contained in those offensive notes
and it was their duty to disclaim them. Nothing was more remote from
the true sentiments of the Irish people. These notes were of English
growth ; they were written in agitated times, when the title of Elizabeth
was questioned, on the grounds of legitimacy. Party spirit was then ex-
tremely violent ; politics mixed with religion, and, of course, disgraced it.
Queen Mary, of Scotland, had active partisans, who thought it would for-
ward their purposes to translate the Bible, and add to it those obnoxious
notes. But, very shortly after the establishment of the college at Douay,
this Rhemish edition was condemned by all the Doctors of that institution,
who, at the same time, called for and received the aid of the Scotch and
Irish colleges. The book was thus suppressed, and an edition of the Bible,
with notes, was published at Douay, which has ever been since adopted by
the Catholic Church ; so that they not only condemned and suppressed the
Rhemish edition, but they published an edition with notes, to which no
objection has, or could be, urged. From that period there have been but
two editions of the Rhemish Testament ; the first had very little circula-
tion ; the late one was published by a very ignorant printer in Cork, a man
of the name of M'Nauiara, a person who was not capable of distinguishing
between the Rhemish and any other edition of the Bible. He took up the
matter merely as a speculation in trade. He meant to publish a Catholic
Bible, and having put his hand upon the Rhemish edition, he commenced to
print it in numbers. He subsequently became bankrupt, and his property
in this transaction vested in Mr. Gumming, a respectable bookseller in this
city, who is either a Protestant or Presbyterian ; but he carried on the work,
like M'Namara, merely to make money of it, as a mercantile speculation ;
and yet, said Mr. O'Connell, our enemies have taken it up with avidity ; they

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 299

have asserted that the sentiments of those notes are cherished by the Catho-
lics in this country. He would not be surprised to read of speeches in the
next Parliament on the subject. It was a hundred to one but that some of
our briefless barristers have already commenced composing their dull calum-
nies, and that we shall have speeches from them, for the edification of the
Legislature and the protection of the Church. There was not a moment to
be lost. The Catholics should, with one voice, disclaim those very odious
doctrines. He was sure there was not a single Catholic in Ireland that did'
not feel as he did abhorrence at the principles these notes contain. II-
liberality has been attributed to the Irish people, but they are grossly
wronged. He had often addressed the Catholic people of Ireland. He
always found them applaud every sentiment of liberality, and the doctrine
of perfect freedom of conscience the right of every human being to have
his religious creed, whatever that creed might be, unpolluted by the impi-
ous interference of bigotted or oppressive laws. Those sacred rights, and
that generous sentiment, were never uttered at a Catholic aggregate meeting,
without receiving at the instant the loud and the unanimous applause of the
assembly.

It might be said that those meetings were composed of mere rabble.
Well, be it so. For one he should concede that, for the sake of argument.
But what followed ? Why, just this : that the Catholic rabble, without the
advantages of education, or of the influence of polished society, were so
well acquainted with the genuine principles of Christian charity, that they,
the rabble, adopted and applauded sentiments of liberality and of religious
freedom, which, unfortunately, met but little encouragement from the pol-
ished and educated of other sects.

(Then follows the passage which we have quoted in the preceding arti-
cle.)

Mr. O'Connell's motion was put and earned, the words being amended
thus :

That a committee be appointed to draw up an address on the occasion
of the late publication of the Rhemish Testament, with a view to have the
same submitted to an aggregate meeting.

Such, sir, are the history and the authority of the notes put to the
Rhemish translation of the New Testament. The denunciation of Dr.
Troy spoiled the sale of the work in Ireland, and the publishers sent the
remaining copies for sale to this country ; but even this did not remune-
rate him, as his loss was estimated at 500 sterling. It must have been
from one of these exiled copies that the Protestant edition published in this
city, now produced, was taken. These being the facts of the case, if I were
a Protestant I should feel ashamed of a clergyman of my church who, from
either malice or ignorance, should take up such a book, with the unchristian
view of blackening the character of any denomination of my fellow-citizens.
But not only this, sir, but look at the array of the names of Protestant
ministers in this city certifying, contrary to the fact, that this text and these
notes are by the authority of the Catholic Church, and then say whether
there is no prejudice against the Catholics ! I shall now dismiss the subject.

Sir, the Methodist gentleman, in the whole of his address, in which he
made the charge I have now disposed of, and of which I wish him joy, slyly
changed the nature and bearing of my language in the remarks I made last
evening. For instance, respecting purgatory, of which I observed, if they
were not satisfied with our purgatory, and wished to go farther, they might

300 THE TDBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

prove the truth of the proverb, which says they may " go farther and fare
worse." He said I "i" them farther. But that corresponds with the
rest. I did not send them farther. I here disavow such feelings, in the
name of human nature and of that venerable religion which I profess.

But he has seen that " betting," as he was pleased to call it, is a sin,
because, forsooth, " he would get my money without an equivalent." Now,
I think he suspected the contrary. But I did not propose betting. His
calumny had taken me by surprise ; but was it not fortunate, almost provi-
dential, that I had at hand a direct refutation ? for, if his charge had gone
abroad uncontradicted, the ignorant or bigotted would have taken it on his
authority, and quoted it with as much assurance as he did on that of the
British Critic and for the same unholy purpose. He took me, I say, at an
unfair moment, and then it was I stated that, if the gentleman could prove
his charge there were gentlemen here who had confidence in my word,
and I said I would pledge myself to forfeit one thousand dollars, to be dis-
tributed in charities to the poor as this Council might direct, provided he
would agree to the same forfeiture if he failed to prove it. This is not bet-
ting.

He says that his Church has taught him the sinfulness of betting. But
this did not deserve that name. It was only an ordeal to test his confidence
in the veracity of the slander contained in the Methodist remonstrance. I
may not, indeed, have the same scruples about what he calls gambling that
he has ; but I do remember what he seems to have forgotten that there is
a precept of the Decalogue, a commandment of the living God, which says,
" Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

I now pass to another portion of this gentleman's remarks. He con-
tends that it is impossible to furnish reading-lessons from history for the
last ten centuries, without producing what must be offensive to Catholics.
The history of Catholics is so black, that the public schools could not, in
his view, find a solitary bright page to refresh the eye of the Catholic chil-
dren. This is set forth in the remonstrance of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, and this the reverend gentleman undertook to support in his speech.
He said that history must not be falsified for our accommodation ; that the
black and insulting passages against us and our religion, placed in the hands
of our children at the public schools, were not to be charged as a defect in
the system, inasmuch as the trustees could find worse, but would be obliged
to falsify history itself to find better. From this defence you can judge
what confidence Catholics can place in this Society, or in the schools under
their charge.

I contended that there existed portions of history eminently honorable
to Catholics. But, says he, " history is philosophy, teaching by example ;
the good and the bad must be taken together." Then how does it happen
that the bad alone is presented in the public schools ? Besides, if all the
good and all the bad which history ascribes to Catholics must be presented,
it would make a library rather large for a class-book in the public schools.
Hence the necessity of a selection ; and how is it that, in the selection, the
bad -is brought out, and the good passed over in silence as if it did not

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 301

exist? Why is the burning of Huss selected? why the burning of Cran-
mer ? Why are our children taught, in the face of all sense and decency,
that Martin Luther did more for learning than any other man " since the
days of the apostles " ? Why is " Phelim Maghee " represented as " sealing
his soul \vith a wafer " in contempt to the holiest mystery known to Catho-
lics, the Sacred Eucharist ? Why are intemperance and vice set forth as the
necessary and natural effects of the Catholic religion ? All this put in the
hands of Catholic children by this Society, claiming to deserve the confi-
dence of Catholic parents !

Now, the Methodist gentleman says that all this is right that the trus-
tees could not possibly, within the last ten centuries, find history which
would not be offensive to Catholics ; and that, to make it otherwise, it must
be falsified. Now, sir, I should like to know whether it can be expected
that we should have any confidence in schools, for the support of which we
are taxed, in which our religious feelings are insulted, our children pervert-
ed, and whose advocates tell us gravely that we ought to be satisfied that
things cannot be otherwise, unless history is to be falsified for our con-
venience ! To this we never shall consent. Religious intolerance has done
much to degrade us, and its most dangerous instrument was depriving us
of education.

The gentleman [Dr. Bond] has corrected some of my remarks of last
evening on the Methodist Episcopal Church. The fact is, the style of re-
monstrance presented here as emanating from that Church, imposed 011 me
the necessity of alluding to the history and principles of that denomina-
tion. It is unpleasant to me at any time to use language calculated to
wound the feelings of any sect or class of my fellow-citizens. But they who
offer the unprovoked insult must not complain of the retort. I stated that
the Methodists in England had never done a solitary act to aid in the spread
of civil and religious liberty in that country ; that, whilst the Catholics
aided the Dissenters in obtaining the repeal of the Test and Corporation
acts, the Methodists never contributed to that measure by so much as one
petition in its favor. But it appears I fell into a mistake, which the gentle-
man corrected with great precision and gravity. The " Methodist society "
in England, he tells us, is something quite different from the " Methodist
Episcopal Church " in the United States. The former consider themselves
only as a society in the Established Church, just as the religious orders, the
Dominicans, Jesuits, &c., are in the Catholic communion. Certainly it is
new to me to learn that the Methodists and the Church of England are in
such close and affectionate spiritual relationship. For, although the Metho-
dists consider themselves a society within the pale of the Establishment, the
members of the Established Church are quite of a different opinion, since it
was only the other day that I read of a presbyter of that Church having
been suspended by his bishop for having preached in a Methodist meeting-
house 1 So that the affection of the Methodists for the Church of England
does not appear to be very cordially reciprocated.

This gentleman tells us that the Methodists, who are only a " society " in
England, are an " Episcopal Church in America." Yes, sir, Mr. Wesley, who

302 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

was himself but a priest, actually consecrated a BISHOP for the United
States ! And hence the Methodist Episcopal Church a new order of epis-
copacy, deriving their authority and character from Mr. John Wesley, a
mere jn-iest. But, with or without bishops, their whole history proves how
much they imbibed of the intolerance of the Established Church of Eng-
land, to which he tells us they are so intimately allied in that country, but
which at all times spurns the connection. This same John Wesley held and
wrote that no government ought to grant toleration to Catholics ; because,
forsooth, either from ignorance of Catholic doctrines, or bigotry against
them, he was pleased to believe and assert falsely that they held it lawful to
murder heretics. When the Government of Great Britain was about to miti-
gate the code of penal laws and persecution against the Catholics in 1780,
who was more fervent and fanatical in opposition to the exercise of mercy
than John Wesley ? The great object of the Protestant Association, headed
by Lord George Gordon, was to oppose the least mitigation of severity.
Who was more active in the intellectual operations of that Society than Mr.
John Wesley ? Under the leadership of Lord George Gordon, they raised a
rebellion in that year, and when the mob had plundered, destroyed, and
burnt the houses and churches of the Catholics, spread consternation
throughout the city of London, and caused human blood to flow in torrents,
we have this same Wesley with sanctimonious gravity charging it all on the
Catholics the victims of its fury and contending that it was a " popish
plot." His services in that association had been acknowledged by a unani-
mous tote of thanks, dated February 17th of that very year. This was in
1780, when the mighty events which had occurred in this country taught
the British Government the expediency of relaxing the penal laws against
so large a portion of her subjects in England and Ireland. The rebound of
those events had been felt throughout the world. They were the events cre-
ated and accomplished by the great fathers of this republic, then struggling
into existence ; and whilst Catholics and Protestants fought bravely side by
side in the ranks of independence while a Catholic Carroll was signing its
charter, and another Carroll, a priest and (tell it not in Gath) a Jesuit, was
employed on an embassy to render the population of Canada friendly, or, at
least, not hostile to our struggle whilst a Catholic Commodore Barry was
doing the office of a founder and father to our young and gallant navy
what was John Wesley doing ? He was creeping to the British throne, to
lay at the feet of His Majesty's Government the offer to raise a regiment,
and put them at the disposal of the Crown, expressly to put down what he
called the " American Rebellion " to crush the rising liberties of your
infant country !

Now, sir, I think I was authorized to state that the Methodists have
done as little for the spread of human liberty, the rights and equality of
mankind, as any other denomination, no matter how old or how young. If
they have not done extensive mischief, of which the gentleman boasts, it is
to be remembered that they never possessed supreme civil power, and that,
in the order of time, they have been too insignificant, and are still too juve-
nile, to have done extensive evil. If they have done private good, as the

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 303

gentleman contends, I confess it reminds me of Stephen Girard's charity.
He was exceedingly rich, and, because he was rich, people thought he was
very wise. And inasmuch as he despised all external show of religion, it
was inferred he was very charitable to the poor, without, however, making
a display of it. If it was so, no man ever practised better the counsel of the
gospel, " not to let the left hand know what the right hand doeth " in the
matter. It was so private that no one ever could find it out. So is it with
the Methodist Church with regard to any public benefit ever conferred on
mankind we have yet to hear of it.

I will now satisfy the gentleman on another subject which seems to
trouble him, ajid on which he " should like to know." And as other gen-
tlemen have alluded to it, I hope the same explanation will suffice in reply
to them all.

Before the British Government released the Catholics from the penalties
under which they labored, among which not the least was the exclusion of
the schoolmaster, they called upon them to disavow principles which they
knew Catholics did not entertain. But, in order to reconcile the prejudices
of the English people, they had an investigation of those imputed princi-
ples before the Houses of Parliament ; they called upon some distinguished
Catholic citizens, and questioned them on several points, such as those the
gentleman has so frequently referred to, among which was the spiritual
authority of the pope. From the testimony which they took I now quote.
It is part of the testimony of Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildare ; but other bish-
ops and public men were all examined on the same subject.

Question. According to the principles which govern the Roman Catholic
Church in Ireland, has the pope any authority to issue commands, ordi-
nances, or injunctions, general or special, without the consent of the king ?

Answer. He has.

Question. If he should issue such orders, are the subjects of His Majes-
ty, particularly the clergy, bound to obey them ?

Answer. The orders that he has a right to issue must regard things that
are of a spiritual nature ; and when his commands regard such things, the
clergy are bound to obey them ; but were he to issue commands regarding
things not spiritual, the clergy are not in any wise bound to obey them.

Consequently, if His Holiness, as the gentleman [Mr. Ketchum] said,
should forbid the reading of the Declaration of Independence, it would not
be of any authority.

Mr. KETCHUM; Does the book say so ?

Bishop HUGHES. I am authority myself in matters of my religion.
Surely, sir, I am not here to betray it, and I am astonished that the gentle-
man is not better acquainted with history on the matter. He amused us, a
little while ago, with the idea of what terrible consequences might ensue if
the pope, a " foreign potentate," should forbid us to read the Declaration of
Independence, or forbid the reading of the Bible in our common schools.
He even apologized for his alarm with singular simplicity : " He meant no
reflection. This matter had come out in evidence here." It was then, sir, I
wondered at his not having read history, or having read it to so little advan-
tage.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Did he not know that, long before the Declaration of Independence,
Venice rose out of the sea, a Catholic State, with all her republican glory
round about her ? And when the pope, in his capacity of " foreign poten-
tate," attempted to invade her temporal rights, her Catholic sons did what
they ought to have done they unsheathed their swords and routed his
troops. Did they thereby forfeit their allegiance to him as spiritual head of
the Church on earth ? Not an iota of it. To a man who reads history and
understands it, this fact alone points out the difference, in the creed of
Catholics, between the pope and the potentate. The Venitians knew that
the pope, in his spiritual capacity, belongs to a kingdom which is not of
this world. And the allegiance of Catholics to him, out of his own small
dominions, is due to him only in his spiritual capacity. "Whatever temporal
right was acquired over independent States by the popes in former ages, was
owing to no principle of Catholic doctrine, but purely to the disorders of
the times and the pusillanimity of weak rulers, who, in order to secure the
pope's protection, made themselves his vassals. The popes, in such circum-
stances, would have been more or less than men, had they refused to embrace
these opportunities of aggrandizement so placed within their reach and
often pressed upon them. Now, every Catholic is familiar with this view
of the subject, and yet, except a few of larger minds and better education,
it has hardly penetrated the density of Protestant prejudice. Hence you
hear them giving the most absurd construction to the duties of Catholics
between the supposed conflicting claims of their country and the imputed
principles of their religion. Permit me here to call your attention to the true
and beautiful exposition of the case as set forth in the language of a gentle-
man who, though a Catholic, is acknowledged to be a man of as high honor,
as lofty and patriotic principles, and as unblemished a character, as any man
the nation can boast of: I mean Judge Gaston, of North Carolina. The
State has no son of whom she is, or ought to be, prouder. And yet, up till
within a few years, the laws of that State disqualified a Catholic from hold-
ing any, even the office of a constable. In a speech made by Judge Gaston
in the convention for revising the State Constitution, in reference to this
matter, he says :

But it has been objected, that the Catholic religion is unfavorable to
freedom nay, even incompatible with republican institutions. Ingenious
speculations on such matters are worth little, and prove still less. Let me
ask, Who obtained the great charter of English freedom, but the Catholic
prelates and barons at Runnymede ? The oldest, the purest democracy on
earth, is the little Catholic republic of St. Mavino, not a day's journey from
Rome. It has existed now for fourteen hundred years, and is so jealous of
arbitrary power, that the executive authority is divided between two gov-
ernors, who are elected every three months. Was William Tell, the founder
of Swiss liberty, a royalist ? Are the Catholics of tin- S\\i-s cantons in love
with tyranny ? Are the Irish Catholics friends to passive obedience and
non-resistance ? Was La Fayette, Pulaski, or Kosciusko, a foe to civil free-
dom ? Was Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, unwilling to jeopard fortune in
the cause of liberty ? Let me give you, however, the testimony of George
Washington. On his accession to the presidency, he was addressed by the
American Catholics, who, adverting to the restrictions on their worship then
existing in some of the States, expressed themselves thus : " The prospec*

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 305

of national prosperity is peculiarly pleasing to us on another account ; be-
cause, while our country preserves her freedom and independence, we shall
have well-founded title to claim from her justice the equal rights of citizen-
ship as the price of our blood spilt under your eye, and of our common
exertions for her defence under your auspicious conduct." This great man,
who was utterly incapable of flattery and deceit, utters, in answer, the fol-
lowing sentiments, which I give in his own words : " As mankind become
more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct
themselves as worthy members of the community, are equally entitled to the
protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the fore-
most nations in examples of justice and liberality ; and I presume that your
fellow-citizens will never forget the patriotic part which you took in the
accomplishment of their revolution and the establishment of their Govern-
ment, or the important assistance which they received from a nation in
which the Roman Catholic faith is professed." By the by, sir, I would
pause for a moment to call the attention of this committee to some of the
names subscribed to this address. Among them are those of John Carroll,
the first Roman Catholic bishop of the United States, Charles Carrol], of
Carrollton, and Thomas Fitzsimmons. For the characters of these distin-
guished men, if they need vouchers, I would confidently call on the vener-
able President of this Convention. Bishop Carroll was one of the best men
and most humble and devout of Christians. I shall never forget a tribute
to his memory paid by the good and venerable Protestant Bishop "White,
when contrasting the piety with which the Christian Carroll met death, with
the cold trifling that characterized the last moments of the skeptical David
Hume. I know not whether the tribute was more honorable to the piety
of the dead, or to the charity of the living prelate. Charles Carroll, of
Carrollton, the last survivor of the signers of American Independence, at
whose death both Houses of the Legislature of North Carolina unanimously
testified their sorrow as at a national bereavement ! Thomas Fitzsimmons,
one of the illustrious convention that framed the Constitution of the United
States, and for several years the Representative in Congress from the city of
Philadelphia. Were these, and such as these, foes to freedom, and unfit for
republicanism ? Would it be dangerous to permit such men to be sheriffs
and constables in the land 1 Read the funeral eulogium of Charles Carroll,
delivered at Rome by Bishop England, one of the greatest ornaments of the
American Catholic Church a foreigner, indeed, by birth, but an American
by adoption, and who, becoming an American, solemnly abjured all alle-
giance to every foreign king, prince, and potentate whatever that eulo-
gium which was so much carped at by English royalists and English tories
and I think you will find it democratic enough to suit the taste and find
an echo in the heart of the sternest republican amongst us. Catholics are
of all countries, of all governments, of all political creeds. In all, they are
taught that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, and that it is their
duty to render unto Ca?sar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the
things that are God's.

I shall new proceed with the testimony of the Irish bishops in order,
which was interrupted by the gentleman's question.

Here, sir, is the testimony of another bishop Dr. Murray, the present
Archbishop of Dublin, before a committee of the British Parliament :

Question. To what extent, and in what manner, does a Catholic profess
to obey the pope ?

Answer. Solely in spiritual matters, or in such mixed matters as come
under his government such as marriage, for instance, which we hold to be
a sacrament as well as a civil contract ; as it is a sacrament, it is a spiritual
thing, and comes under the jurisdiction, of the pope. Of course, he has

306 THE PUKLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

authority over that spiritual part of it; but this authority does not affect
the civil rights of the individuals contracting.

Question. Does this obedience detract from what is due by a Catholic
to the State under which he lives ?

Answer. Not in the least ; the powers are wholly distinct.

Question. Does it justify an objection that is made to Catholics, that
their allegiance is divided ?

Answer. Their allegiance in civil matters is completely undivided.

Question. Is the duty which the Catholic owes to the pope, and the duty
which lie owes to the king, really and substantially distinct ?

Answer. Wholly distinct.

Question. How far is the claim that some popes have set up to temporal
authority, opposed to Scripture and tradition ?

Answer. As far as it may have been exercised as coming from a right
granted to him by God, it appears to me to be contrary to Scripture and
tradition ; but as far as it may have been exercised in consequence of a right
conferred on him by the different Christian powers, who looked up to him
at one time as the great parent of Christendom, who appointed him as the
arbitrator of their concerns, many of whom submitted their kingdoms to
him and laid them at his feet, consenting to receive them back from him as
fiefs, the case is different. The power that he exercised under that author-
ity of course passed away when those temporal princes who granted it chose
to withdraw it. His spiritual power does not allow him to dethrone kings,
or to absolve their subjects from the allegiance due to them ; and any
attempt of that kind I would consider contrary to Scripture and tradition.

Question. Does the pope now dispose of temporal affairs within the
kingdoms of any of the princes of the continent ?

Answer. Not that I am aware of. I am sure he does not.

Question. Do the Catholic clergy admit that all the bulls of the pope
are entitled to obedience ?

Answer. They are entitled to a certain degree of reverence. If not con-
trary to our usages, or contrary to the law of God, of course they are enti-
tled to obedience, as coming from a superior. We owe obedience to a
parent, we owe obedience to the king, we owe it to the law ; but if a parent,
the king, or the law, were to order us to do any thing that is wrong, we
would deem it a duty to say, as the apostles did on another occasion, " We
ought to obey God rather than men."

Question. Are there circumstances under which the Catholic clergy would
not obey a bull of the pope ?

Answer. Most certainly.

Question. What is the true meaning of the following words in the creed
of Pius IV. : " I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman bishop,
the successor of St. Peter ? "

Answer. Canonical obedience in the manner I have just described,
within the sphere of his own authority.

Question. What do the principles of the Catholic religion teach in
respect to the performance of civil duties ?

Answer. They teach that he performance of civil duties is a conscien-
tious obligation which the law of God imposes on us.

Question. Is the Divine law, then, quite clear as to the allegiance due
by subjects to their prince ?

Answer. Quite clear.

Question. In what books are to be found the most authentic exposition
of the faith of the Catholic Church ?

Answer. In that very creed that has been mentioned the creed of Pius
IV. ; in the catechism which was published by the direction of the Council
of Trent, called " The Roman Catechism," or " The Catechism of Ihe Coun-
cil of Trent ; " " An Exposition of the Catholic Faith, by the Bishop of

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 307

Meaux, Bossuet ; " u Verron's Rule of Faith ; " " Holden's Analysis of
Faith," and several others.

Such is the character and limitation of the pope's authority, attested
under oath, by bishops and other Catholic dignitaries, before the British
Parliament. The Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland had been bowed
down to the earth by penal laws and persecution during three hundred
years, with nothing between them and the enjoyment of all their rights but
the solemnity of an oath. If their conscience had permitted them to swear
what they did not believe, they might have entered on their political rights
at any time ; and yet, as martyrs to the sacredness of conscience, they re-
sisted.

I have now, sir, supplied the reverend gentleman who presented the
remonstrance from the Methodist Episcopal Church with all the information
which the occasion permits on the subject of the pope's authority. But
there is a good deal more to which, if time allowed, I might address myself.
He became very logical, and insisted on the fact that the doctrines of the
Catholic Church are always the same immutable. He says that we boast
of this ; and we do so, most assuredly. From the hour when they were
revealed and taught by Divine authority until the present, from the rising to
the setting of the sun, the faith of the Catholic believer and the doctrines
of the Catholic Church are everlastingly and universally the same. But
then he concludes that, as Catholics in some instances in former times perse-
cuted, so, their religion being always the same, they are still bound to perse-
cute, or else disavow the doctrine, as Protestants do. Now, sir, we do dis-
avow and despise the doctrine of persecution in all its essence and forms.
But does it follow that, by this, we disavow any doctrine of the Catholic
Church ? By no means. And this proves that persecution never was any
portion of the Catholic faith ; for if it had been, the denial of it would cut
us off from her communion. The Church we believe, by the promise and
superintendence of Christ, her invisible Head and Founder, to be infallible.
She received the deposit of the doctrines revealed by our Redeemer and His
apostles ; her office is to witness, teach, and preserve them. These alone
constitute the religious creed and doctrines of the Catholic Church and her
members. We believe in a Trinity, the incarnation of Christ, the redemp-
tion by His death, the divine institution of the Church. These, and what-
ever the Church holds as of Divine revelation, are the doctrines of our Cath-
olic unity. And the individual who is now addressing you, and the Cath-
olic martyr who is at this moment, perhaps, bleeding for his faith in China
for the Church has her martyrs still hold and believe identically the same
doctrines. But as there is unity in faith, so there is, in the Church, freedom
of opinion on matters which are not determined by any specific revelation.
Hence, we are republicans or monarchists according to individual prefer-
ence, or the prevailing genius of the country we belong to. Hence, when
the Catholic divines at Rheims were appending these notes to their edition
of the New Testament, the Catholic bishops of Poland, with her twenty-two
millions, were opening the doors of the Constitution to the fugitive Protes-
tants of Germany, fleeing from the intolerance and persecution of their fel-

308 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

low-Protestants. The one act is as much a Catholic doctrine as the other,
because, in both cases, the agents acted not by the authority of the Church,
but in the exercise of that individual judgment for which their account
stands to God.

But I must be brief. I cannot follow so many learned speakers through
so much matter that is foreign to the subject ; for I agree with the medical
gentleman, who said that neither the Catholic nor the Protestant religion
was on trial here. It is not religious creeds that are to be tested by this
Council. I have, however, given this explanation, and I trust it will be re-
ceived, though it may have been tedious, as having its apology in the re-
marks which called it forth. I only wish that the gentleman who made the
observation had made it one hour and a half sooner; it would have saved
ail I hav"e said on the subject.

But this speaker also (Dr. Reese) lectured me for attending certain meet-
ings, as if it were a descent from my dignity to find myself in an assembly
of freemen. I did not consider it as a descent. But really, when I came
here in the simple character of a citizen, I did not think I should be vested
with my official robes for the purpose of being attacked. Individuals as
respectable as he attended those meetings, and I consider it no disgrace to
have been there or here ; for even if this petition came not from Catholics,
but from Methodists or any other Protestant denomination, whose con-
sciences were violated by this system, I should be found in their midst sup-
porting their claim. Let me add, too, that I would rather be so found,
than, for all the exchequer of the Public School Society, exchange places
with gentlemen, and have conscience and right for my opponents. He also
contended that this want of confidence in Catholics was the result of my
appeals, forgetting that the state of things which is now brought under
public notice has existed for years, by efforts to provide a safe education for
our children, long before those meetings were called, and before I attended
them. And, besides, I conceive it is my bounden duty, if I saw principles
inculcated which will sap the young minds of our children and I have no
doubt this honorable board will say it is my duty to warn them, and to
bring them within the pale of that authority which they acknowledge. I
wonder if Presbyterian gentlemen would see Catholic books circulated
amongst their children, and not warn their people against them ? I won-
der, if these books contained reading-lessons about Calvin and the unhappy
burning of Servetus, whether they would not warn their people ? I say, if
they believe in their religion, they would be in the discharge of their duty.
And, while on this subject, it occurs to me at this moment that, in the wide
range of observation which has been taken, reference has been made to
national education in Ireland. And we are told that, after books had been
agreed upon, the bishops sent the question to Rome to be decided by the
pope. What question ? Can they tell ? for I am sure I cannot. To this
day I have never understood the exact nature of the reference to the pope.
But, sir, this is no extraordinary thing. Under the jealous eye of the Brit-
ish Government, even in the darkest hour of her cruelty to Catholics, their
intercourse with Rome was not interrupted. But, while that collection and

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 309

compilation of Scripture lessons was agreed on in the more Catholic parts
of the country where the population is divided between Protestants and
Catholics, what is the fact ? Why, in another part, the north of Ireland,
where the Presbyterians are more numerous, they had conscientious objec-
tions to this selection of Scripture ; they asserted their objections, and the
British Government recognized them ; and thus, while these lessons, by
agreement, were in general use, an exception was made in favor of the Pres-
byterians, who had objections to the use of any thing but the naked word
of God ; and I say, honor to those Presbyterians. The Catholics sent in no
remonstrance. But if the rule applied to their case, by what authority will
your honorable body determine that it shall not apply to ours ? Oh ! I per-
ceive. The gentleman whose remarks I am reviewing, reasoned on, until he
arrived at the conclusion that there were no conscientious grounds for our
objection at all. True, we said we had ; but he could not see what con-
science had to do with a matter so plain. He said, here the community had
built up a beautiful system ; it was doing good. He asked, Shall we put it
aside in deference to pretended scruples ? Now, tell me when the despotism
of intolerance ever said any thing else than this ? Why, the Established
Church of England said " we are doing good," " our doors are open to all,"
" the minister is at the desk, and the bread of life is distributed for the public
good." What then ? What business have these unhappy parents to find
fault, for conscience' sake, and squeamishness ? Now, sir, objections can
exist to the slightest shade of violation to our conscience, and, therefore, I
did not expect to hear this argument at this time of day. But the gentle-
man speaks of my addressing the public meetings to which he has alluded, as
though my speaking there had been the cause instead of the consequence of
the scruples of our people. Then it was I joined them to seek a remedy for
our just complaint ; but if, in your wisdom, this body shall think proper to
deny it us, we must bear it.

He contended, again, that it would be turning the public money to pri-
vate uses. That seems to me to have been fully answered. He also con-
tended that it would be the giving of the money of the State to support re-
ligion. That I have disputed ; for if so, I shall have no objections to join
those gentlemen in their remonstrance. But at the same time it does ap-
pear strange to me, that the gentleman who pretends to have read the Scrip-
tures with so much attention, should not have learned that principle the
most general, sir, and the most infallible of Christian principles for the
guidance of our conduct " Do unto others as ye would that others should
do unto you." That is the principle ; and is it not strange that such oppo-
sition should be made to us, when it is known .that money raised by public
tax goes to the support of literature under the supervision of the Methodist
Episcopal Church ? And why do not Catholics object to that ? Because
the tax does not belong to any particular sect ; it is thrown into a common
fund, and applied to such uses as the Legislature in its wisdom thinks
proper. We, sir, however, ask for our own, and nothing else. But if you
say that we shall be taxed for a system which is so organized that we cannot
participate in it without detriment to the religious rights of our children,

310 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

then I say that injustice is done even to our civil rights ; for taxation is the
basis of even civil rights. And I was not a little struck, in the course of
the argument, that some gentleman should refer with so much emphasis 05
to a circumstance novel and unparalleled even in social life : that a certain
class of gentlemen should petition for what ? The privilege of being
taxed ! They deemed it a privilege ; and that was wonderful ! and merit
was ascribed to them for it. Yes, sir ; but did it go to the extent only of
their own pockets ? Or did it not reach the pockets equally of those who
did not petition ? If to themselves only, it was all fair and proper, disin-
terested and patriotic : but great emphasis was laid on this class being most
" intelligent " and " wealthy " and " respectable " nobility almost ; as
though a question of this kind was intended for a particular class. But let
me tell you, the honest man who occupies only a bed in a garret is also a
taxpayer. Why give him a vote ? Because he. pays tax for the space he
occupies. If he occupies a room and pays the tax, his rent is less ; if the
landlord pays, his rent is so much more. So, if he occupies a garret, or if
he boards, it goes down to that ; for the person who keeps the boarding-
house pays the rent. If that tax is paid by the boarding-house keeper, the
rent is so much less, than if the tax was paid by the landlord. If the
boarding-house keeper pays the tax, he charges more for board. So that the
boarder is a taxpayer, and it is so understood in our broad and excellent
system of representation. The exclusive merit of this tax, then, is not to be
given to any particular class, no matter how wealthy ; and I was surprised
that so much emphasis should be laid on it. I did not suppose that the
interests of the poor were to be sacrificed to the respectability of the rich.
The poor pay too, and it is a beautiful and admirable thing to see what a
dignity this confers on human nature what an interest this excites in the
poor. I recollect passing along a street some time since, and I observed a
little house, almost a shed or hovel, some fourteen or sixteen feet square,
which was too small to be divided into two compartments. It had but one
window, and this had originally had four panes of glass, but one having
been broken, it was darkened. There had been some political party tri-
umph ; the boys in the streets had their drums out, and there appeared to
be a popular rejoicing, and there I saw three lights burning in the window
of this poor habitation. I was amused to see that a man living in so poor
a hovel, and unable to buy a fourth pane of glass, should find means to
light the other three. But, on further reflection, I said to myself, " There is
philosophy there." What other nation can exhibit such a spectacle ? This
poor man, who must toil till the day he goes to his grave, participates in a
political triumph. His bread has to be corned by daily toil ; nevertheless,
though the triumph, perhaps, will never benefit him, he exhibits a glorious
spectacle to the world. He is a man he feels it is recognized. It is a na-
tion's homage offered to human nature. He is a man and a citizen ; and, on
reflection, I was delighted at a spectacle so glorious as this.

But, returning to the subject, they say all religion is left to voluntary
contribution. Now, ia this true in the sense in which it is here applied ?
Are not chaplains appointed to public institutions which are supported by

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 311

the public money ? And have you not given it to the Protestant Orphan
Asylum, and the Half-Orphan Asylum ? Have you not given it to the Cath-
olic Benevolent Society ? And do you suppose the Wesleyan Catechism is
taught there ? Do you suppose the Catholic Catechism is taught in the
Protestant asylums ? One gentleman argued that you had not power to do
this. But if you have done it, does not that prove that jou had the power ?
If you had power to do that, you have power equally to do this. I shall go
further. I find, in the report of the regents of the University, that the
Genesee Wesleyan Seminary Theological Seminary, as I understand has
last year received $1,895.56 of the public money. This is not exclusively
literary, as I understand it

Dr. BANGS. Altogether literary.

Bishop HUGHES. I was under the impression that it was theological,
and that religion was admitted. But those in this city furnish evidence that
a religious profession does not disqualify.

I believe now, sir, I have gone through the substance at least, if not
through every particular, of what has been said by the gentlemen who in-
terpose their remonstrances and their arguments in opposition to our right-
ful claim. I will now read one authority, and I am the more willing because
it is from the Public School Society itself. It is from the memorial
which they presented to the Legislature in the session of 1823, in which
they state, p. 7, " It will not be denied " recollect, I do not quote this to
show that our petition ought to be granted, but that, whatever opinion
these gentlemen may now have of the unconstitutionality of granting this
claim, they saw nothing unconstitutional in the practice then, and I know
of nothing so far as the Constitution is concerned, neither of the State, nor
of the United States I know of no enactment which should change their
opinion " it will not be denied, in this enlightened age, that the education
of the poor is enjoined by our holy religion, and is, therefore, one of the
duties of a Christian Church. Nor is there any impropriety in committing
the school fund to the hands of a religious society, so long as they are con-
fined in the appropriation of it to an object not necessarily connected or
intermingled with the other concerns of the church, as, for instance, to the
payment of teachers ; because the State is sure, in this case, that the benefits
of the fund, in the way it designed to confer them, will be reaped by the
poor. But the objection to the section sought to be repealed is, that the
surplus moneys, after the payment of teachers, is vested in the hands of the
trustees of a religious society, and mingled with its other funds, to be
appropriated to the erection of buildings under the control of the trustees,
which buildings may, and in all probability will, be used for other purposes
than school-houses."

That is the statement of the Public School Society itself; and throiigh-
out this document while the gentlemen here have been wielding against
our petition the influence of respectable and wealthy classes I find that,
before the acquisition of their monopoly, they advocated the claims of the
poor, who cannot ~buy education, sometimes scarcely bread. This is the class
to whose welfare the eye of the enlightened, the patriotic, and the benevo-

31'2 , THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

lent should be directed ; this is the class that essentially requires education.
Thus they say, " The school fund is designed for a civil purpose, for such is
the education of the poor."

Again, they say that the New York Free School (that was their own
Society) has " one single object the education of the poor.' 1 ' 1 Again, the
Board of Trustees is annually chosen, &c., " for the education of the poor."
And yet now I could point out thousands of our poor who are destitute of
education, and who have no means to provide it. We do what we can, but
we are, too limited in means to raise, of ourselves, a sufficient fund. We
have labored under great disadvantages ; we have taught the catechism in
our schools, because, while we supported them, we had the right to do so ;
but if you put them on the footing of the common schools, we shall be
satisfied, and the State will secure the education of our children. You will
secure them an education on the basis of morality ; for they had better be
brought up under the morality of our religion, though gentlemen object,
than none at all. They say the objection to the present schools is, that
there they are made Protestants. No, sir; it is because they are made
Nothingarians, for we cannot tell what they are. I have now concluded,
and if I have been obliged to trespass long upon your patience, recollect, as
some extenuation, that I had a great deal to reply to in the arguments of
gentlemen which were urged to overthrow the principles of our petition,
but had no bearing on the petition at all. We do not ask for the elevation
of the Catholics over others, but for the protection to which all are entitled.
The question is exceedingly plain and simple. If it has or can be shown
that we are claiming this money for sectarian purposes, then I should advise
you to withhold it. But if, in honesty and truth and sincerity, it is a right
belonging to us as citizens to receive our pro rata, then we appeal to you
with confidence.

From the sentiments expressed here on behalf of the Public School
Society, you can judge of the chance that Catholic children have in those
schools to have their religious rights respected. It will be, as perhaps it has
been, considered a great and a good work to detach them from a religion
which is supposed " to teach the lawfulness of murdering heretics." Infidel-
ity itself will be considered preferable to Catholicism in their regard, for
one reverend gentleman has told you that, if there was no alternative, he
would embrace the doctrines of Voltaire rather than the religion of a Che-
verus or a Fenclon. If the Catholics have been obliged to keep their chil-
dren from those schools in time past, you may imagine what effects these
sentiments, this animus of the system, is likely to have on their minds for
the time to come. But if it is our religious right to have a conscience at
all, do not take pains to pervert it, for we shall not be better citizens after-
ward. Do not teach us to slight the admonitions of our conscience. Re-
verse our case and make it your own, and then you will be able to judge.
Make it your own case, and suppose your children were in the case of those
poor children for whom I plead ; then suppose what your feelings would be
if the blessings of education were provided bountifully by the State, and
you were unable to participate in those blessings, unless you were willing to
submit that your conscience should be trenched upon.

SPEECH OF MB. KETCHUM. 313

Here the right reverend prelate sat down, after having spo-
ken for nearly three hours and a half.

Dr. BANGS. I wish simply to correct an error, into which the reverend
gentleman has fallen, respecting an observation I made as to a matter of
fact. I believe he understood me to say that it was my opinion the Legisla-
ture ought to take the children of Catholics and compel them to attend the
schools. If so, he misunderstood me. I meant to say that those children
that do not go to any schools ought to be compelled to go to the public
schools.

A brief conversation ensued between the Right Rev. Bishop
Hughes and Dr. Bond, in explanation of the charge made against
John "Wesley, that he had aided or excited Lord George Gor-
don's mob.

The Right Rev. Bishop HUGHES. Might I be allowed to read the pas-
sage from the chapter on " The Character of Christ," by the Bishop of Lon-
don, to which reference has been had ? Speaking of Jesus Christ, it says :

His answers to the many insidious questions that were put to Him
showed uncommon quickness of conception, soundness of judgment, and
presence of mind, completely baffled 1 all the artifices and malice of His ene-
mies, and enabled Him to elude all the snares that were laid for Him.

Mr. KETCHUM rose, and said : I wish, sir, to say a few words in explana-
tion. I do not wish to continue the theological discussion, but to make a
few remarks on the precise issue before the board.

The CHAIRMAN. That has, I apprehend, been very fully debated.

Mr. KETCHUM. I desire to make a remark in reply to the gentleman on
the other side, in reference to the publication of the Bishop of London.
But first, sir, the reverend gentleman has endeavored, with great dexterity,
to place this case upon the consciences of the Catholic society. He has rep-
resented the decision of this board against their petition as a violation of
the rights of conscience. He well knows the favorable attitude in which
they stand who appear to be persecuted for conscience' sake. Does the rev-
erend gentleman mean to say here, he has conscientious scruples against
these schools as public institutions ? Does he mean to affirm here that they
have not performed all they promised namely, to give a good secular edu-
cation to the poor ? No ; that is not affirmed. Whatever he may have
stated and whatever he may have contradicted, throughout the length of his
address, he made no such declaration. But the Roman Catholics have con-
scientious scruples they cannot send their children to these schools with-
out sacrificing their right of conscience ! Now, the Friends cannot send
their children to these schools, because they believe in their consciences that
they ought to educate their own children ; but onn the Friends say they are
opposed upon conscientious grounds to these schools ? They are estab-
lished by a public act of the State, for a public purpose, and they have

314 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

accomplished their purpose they have furnished all the education they
promised. But now the reverend gentleman says his conscience, and the
consciences of the Roman Catholic community, are violated, because they
cannot send their children to these schools. Do they mean to say they have
conscientious scruples against paying their portion of the tax for the sup*
port of these schools ? It might well be that some denominations of Chris-
tians have conscientious scruples against sending their poor to be taken care
of at the almshouse ; but would they have the right to say that they would
not therefore be taxed for the support of the poor ? The conscientious scru-
ple here is not against paying the tax, but against sending their children to
these schools. Now, who compels them ? Does the State interfere, and say
they shall send their children to these schools ? The State says that they,
in common with others, shall pay the tax to support these institutions of
learning. Have they alleged that their consciences are violated by paying
this tax ? Can they say so ? No. Wherein, then, consists this pressure on
their consciences ?

Now, Mr. President, allow me to take another view of this conscientious
objection. If I am taxed to support the religion of the Roman Catholics,
my conscience is violated, because I am compelled to pay a tax to support
that which I believe ought not to be supported. If you establish these sec-
tarian schools through this community, and make Protestants pay for Cath-
olic schools, then indeed you infringe the right of conscience, because you
compel them to do that which is a violation of their consciences. But we
do not compel them to attend these schools. We receive this public boun-
ty, and we come here and account for the manner in which we use it. The
gentleman does not object to this. He does not object to our doing good to
the children that do come. That is not the objection ; but he objects that
he cannot send his children. He pays a tax for a necessary public purpose
admitted to be necessary but, because he cannot come in and participate,
he insists that this public fund shall be taken by the Roman Catholics, by
the Methodists, by any and every other denomination, to support their
religion. Grant this, and then indeed you will infringe the right of con-
science. I do not mean that the reverend gentleman shall have the advan-
tage here of standing on this right of conscience. The consciences of thou-
sands and tens of thousands of this community will be violated, if they are
to be compelled to pay a tax to the public treasury, and from thence to
make religionists of a description that they oppose. I want this matter to
be set right, not only in the estimation of this board, but of the public. I
want them to see what this oppression of conscience is. If it is anywhere,
it is on those who pay the tax of which they do not in their conscience
approve ; the pressure is not on the man that cannot send his children to
participate in the fund. I cannot send my children to these schools. There
are obstacles in the way as formidable as the gentleman's conscience. There
are obstacles, perhaps, with tens of thousands who pay the tax but do not
participate, and who cannot participate, because this obstacle exists. But
have they the right to say they will withhold their tax ? Would the State
listen to such an objection ? No ; the State has established these public

SPEECH OF MB. KETCHUM. 315

institutions for a necessary public purpose ; every man must be taxed for
their support ; and if he does not avail himself of them, it must be his own
fault, or his own peculiarities, perhaps. And now, what, after all, is the
objection to these schools ? Why, from the beginning to the end of this
three hours' speech, we have heard that these books contain passages that
reflect on Catholics.

The CHAIRMAN interposed.

Mr. KETCHUM continued. This is new matter, so far as I am concerned.
From the beginning to the end of the gentleman's speech, we have beard
that the books used in these public schools contain passages that reflect on
Koman Catholics. Now, I submit to any lair, candid man, if this is the time
of day to bring such a charge ? The books have been placed in the hands
of the reverend gentleman ; he has been asked to put his finger on any
objectionable passages, that the board might pass a resolution for its expur-
gation ; and now the gentleman comes here, and lays great stress on and
urges as an argument against the system, from the beginning to the end, the
passages which the trustees offered to expunge. Sir, when the trustees
offered to expunge the passages, in all fairness and candor, they were to be
considered, for the true purposes of this argument, as expunged. And if
they were expunged, what would become of three fourths of the gentleman's
speech all, indeed, except the theological part ? And now, the next great
topic is the Bible.

The PRESIDENT. The gentleman is not in order.

Mr. KETCHUM. I'll not press this matter, if it is disagreeable. I know
the night is far advanced.

The CHAIRMAN. I must say the gentleman is out of order. The board
agreed that the parties should be heard in the order in which their memo-
rials were presented that the petitioners should have the usual right to
reply. They have been so heard, and the gentleman is therefore out of
order, unless the board rescinds its resolution.

An alderman then observed, that there were some gentlemen that were
desirous of putting in written legal opinions, and he moved that they have
permission to do so at the next meeting of the board.

The PRESIDENT said that the next meeting of the board was Monday
next, and therefore no order of the board was necessary for an adjournment
on the subject.

It was, then, understood that legal opinions would be received at the
next meeting of the board.

The debate was here brought to a close, and the Council
adjourned a few minutes before 12 o'clock.

The protracted and exhaustive discussion being brought to a
close, and the committee, having spent some time in visiting
schools and making thorough examinatiqn of the facts involved
in the question, prepared their report, which was submitted to
the Board of Aldermen on January 11, 1841, asking to be dis-

316 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

charged from the consideration of the subject. The report is
subjoined :

REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN.

BOARD OF AI.DF.RMKS, January 11, 1841.

The Special Committee to whom was referred the petition of the Catho-
lics for a portion of the school fund, together with the remonstrances against
the same, presented the following report thereon, which was, on motion,
accepted, and the committee discharged, on a division called by Alderman
Graham, Jr. In the affirmative The President, Aldermen Balis, "Woodhull,
Benson, Jones, Rich, Chamberlain, Campbell, Hatfield, Jarvis, Smith, Nich-
ols, Graham, Cooper, and Nash 15. In the negative Alderman Pentz 1.
And one thousand copies thereof ordered printed, with the vote taken on
the report.

SAMUEL J. WILLIS, Clerk.

Resolved, That all letters and papers touching and connected with the
school fund question be referred to the Special Committee appointed for. the
purpose of investigating the subject.

By WILLIAM CHAMBERLAIN.

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed, in conformity to the
request of the Public School Society, and that a committee of the petition-
ers for a portion of the school fund, and also of the remonstrants, be invited
to accompany them to examine the public schools, for the purpose of ascer-
taining what defects, if any, exist in their organization : and that the said
committee be instructed to report to this board whether any arrangement
can be agreed upon which will be mutually satisfactory to the parties in-
terested.

By WILLIAM CHAMBERLAIN.

The Special Committee to whom was referred the petition of the Catho-
lics of New York relative to the distribution of the school fund, the several
remonstrances and other documents connected with the subject, together
with the above resolution of instructions, respectfully submit the following

REPORT.

In pursuance of the instructions contained in the resolution, they em-
ployed two entire days in visiting the public schools, accompanied by a
committee of the petitioners, and also of the Public School Society, with a
view to ascertain if any defects exist in their organization ; and after a
thorough scrutiny, in which all parties participated, your committee not
only failed to discover any thing strikingly defective in the system, but be-
came strongly impressed with a conviction that the public schools, under
their present organization, are admirably adapted to afford precisely the
kind of instruction for which they were instituted. It is deemed essential
to the welfare and security of our Government that the means of mental

EEPOET OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE. 317

cultivation should be extended to every child in the community. The rising
generation are destined to h^e the future rulers of the land, and their happi-
ness can only be secured by such an education as will constitute them an
intelligent community, prepare them to guard against the machinations of
demagogues, and so to exercise the rights and franchises of citizens as not
to deprive themselves of the invaluable privileges which are their birth-
right. That the public school system, as now organized, is calculated to
effect these objects, your committee do not entertain a doubt ; but, though
they regard it as an incalculable public blessing, if they could be persuaded
that it trespassed upon the conscientious rights of any portion of our citi-
zens, they would begin to doubt the propriety of its continuance. They
cannot, however, conceive that it is justly amenable to such a charge, so
long as sectarian dogmas and peculiarities are excluded from the schools, and
no pupils are either admitted into them, or excluded from them, against the
consent of their natural or legal guardians. The system has grown up
under the auspices of a voluntary association of individuals usually known
as " The Public School Society," formed for the purpose of promoting edu-
cation, and admitting to membership any citizen of good moral character
who is not a clergyman, upon a contribution of ten dollars to its funds.
This Society has watched with indefatigable vigilance and untiring assidu-
ity over the rise and progress of the system, and by their unrequited labors
it has been nurtured into maturity. In its present aspect, it is a monument
of disinterestedness and public spirit, of which our city has reason to be
proud. Your committee hereby acknowledge their indebtedness to the
members of that Society for the prompt manner in which they responded to
every call made upon them ; and they cannot but hope that the spirit of
candor which they have displayed, and which the petitioners in the same
spirit acknowledge, will ultimately remove every barrier which, through mis-
apprehension, as your committee believe, has hitherto retarded the entire
success of their benevolent and patriotic exertions. It has been objected on
the part of the petitioners, that the books used in the public schools contain
passages that are calculated to prejudice the minds of children against the
Catholic faith. This objection your committee discovered to be not wholly
unfounded ; but we are happy to have it in our power to add, that the
School Society fully agree with us in the opinion that nothing in the books
or usages of the schools should be continued that is calculated in the re-
motest degree to wound the feelings or prejudice the minds of children in
favor of or against any religious sect whatever ; that they have expunged
such passages in the books as they have been able to discover in any way
objectionable ; that they desire to continue, and earnestly solicit the aid and
cooperation of the petitioners, in the work of expurgation, until every
really objectionable feature shall be entirely obliterated. The extreme diffi-.
culty of this undertaking is illustrated by the fact that some of the very
same passages quoted by the petitioners as particularly objectionable, and
which have been obliterated in the public school books, were found by your
committee entirely unobscured in the books used in one of the Catholic
schools. It is a melancholy fact that, in neighborhoods where Catholic chil-

318 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

dren arc numerous, the public schools number but few children whose parents
profess the Catholic faith ; but after the arduous task of expurgation shall
have been completed, and every well-grounded objection removed, your com-
mittee fondly hope that the school-houses will be filled with children, and
that no parents or guardians, be their religious feelings what they may, will
refuse to avail themselves of the benefits of the public schools for the edu-
cation of their children, being fully persuaded that many years would elapse
before any new system of instruction could be organized, with advantages
equal to the one now equally available to every child in the community.
If, with such a system, any portion of the children should be left unedu-
cated, it cannot be justly chargeable to a want of comprehensiveness in the
system, but is more fairly attributable to imperfections which human legisla-
tion cannot remedy. The general objections to sectarian public schools do
not apply to cases where children are supported by charity, and necessarily
confined to a particular locality, and not open to all children. Your com-
mittee think that all such establishments' might enjoy the benefits of educa-
tion at public expense, without an infringement of the principles contended
for ; and, the rule being made general, their participation in the benefits of
the school fund would not necessarily constitute a public recognition of
their religious sectarian character. No school system can be perfect which
does not place the means of education within the reach of every child who
is capable of receiving instruction ; and such your committee believe to be
the design and capacity of the system now in use in this city.

The public school buildings are constructed upon a uniform model. The
books used are the same in all the schools, and the classes and departments
in each are so similarly constituted and provided, that the removal of a
pupil from one school to another will not interrupt his studies or retard his
progress. Though religion constitutes no specific part of the system of
instruction, yet the discipline of the schools, and the well-arranged and
selected essays and maxims which abound in their reading-books, are well
calculated to impress upon the minds of children a distinct idea of the
value of religion, the importance of the domestic and social duties, the
existence of God, the Creator of all things, the immortality of the soul,
man's future accountability, present dependence upon a superintending
providence, and other moral sentiments which do not conflict with secta-
rian views and peculiarities.

The different classes examined in several schools by your committee ex-
hibited an astonishing progress in geography, astronomy, arithmetic, read-
ing, writing, &c., and indicated a capacity in the system for imparting
instruction far beyond our expectations ; and though the order and arrange-
ment of each school would challenge comparison with a camp under a rigid
disciplinarian, yet the accustomed buoyancy and cheerfulness of youth and
childhood did not appear to be destroyed in any one of them. Such were
the favorable impressions forced upon our minds by a careful examination
of the public schools. It is due to the trustees to add, that not one of our
visits was anticipated, and no opportunity was afforded to any of the teach-
ers for even a momentary preparation. In the course of our investigations,

REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE. 319

we also -visited three of the schools established by the petitioners, and for
the benefit of which a portion of the school fund is solicited. We found
them, as represented by the petitioners, lamentably deficient in accommoda-
tions and supplies of books and teachers. The rooms "were all excessively
crowded and poorly ventilated, the books much worn as well as deficient in
numbers, and the teachers not sufficiently numerous. Yet, with all these
disadvantages, though not able to compete successfully with the public
schools, they exhibited a progress which was truly creditable ; and, with
the same means at their disposal, they would doubtless soon be able, under
suitable direction, greatly to improve their condition. The object of the
petitioners is to supply these deficiencies from the fund provided by the
bounty of the State for the purposes of common school education. But,
however strongly our sympathies may be excited in behalf of the poor chil-
dren assembled in these schools, such is the state of the public mind on this
subject, that, if one religious sect should obtain a portion of the school
fund, every other one would present a similar claim, and it would be a sig-
nal for the total demolition of the system which has grown up under the
guidance of many years of toilsome experience ; attaining a greater degree
of perfection than has perhaps ever before been achieved, and which is
probably extending a greater amount of instruction, at smaller expense, than
can possibly be imparted by any other school system that has been devised.
This result of such a disposal of the school funds would most probably be
followed by a counteraction in the public mind, which would lead to a revo-
cation of the act by a succeeding Common Council, and the awakening of a
spirit of intolerance, which in our country is, of all calamities, the one most
to be dreaded. Political intolerance is an unmitigated evil ; but the expe
rience of past ages ought to admonish us to guard with unceasing vigilance
against religious intolerance, as an evil greater in magnitude in proportion
as eternal consequences exceed those of time. So long as Government
refuses to recognize religious sectarian differences, no danger need be appre-
hended from this source ; but when it begins to legislate with particular
reference to any particular denomination of Christians, in any manner which
recognizes their religious peculiarities, it oversteps a boundary which public
opinion has established, violates a principle which breathes in all our con-
stitutions, and opens a door to that unholy connection of politics with reli-
gion which has so often cursed and desolated Europe. Under these impres-
sions of the impossibility of granting the prayer of the petitioners without
producing the most fatal consequences, and impressed, at the same time,
with an anxious desire to remove every obstacle out of the way of the pub-
lic education of their children, if it could be done without sacrificing any
fundamental principle, your committee invited the School Society and the
petitioners to appoint delegates to meet them, with a view to effect a com-
promise, if possible. The invitation was promptly responded to, and several
meetings were held, at which the subject was fully and very courteously dis-
cussed in all its bearings ; and though we extremely regret to report that
the conferences did not result as favorably as we had hoped, yet the spirit
and tenor of the following propositions, submitted at our request by both

320 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the School Society and the petitioners, encourage a belief that our labor
may not have been entirely in vain.

PROPOSITION ON THE PART OF THE PETITIONERS.

The schools represented by the undersigned, wherein children are in-
structed free of charge, shall be placed under the supervision of, conform to
the system and discipline adopted by, the Public School Society, and con-
sent that all the expenditures of the schools shall be made under the direc-
tion of that institution, to the purposes of common school education, and to
no other purpose whatsoever, upon the following terms :

1st. That there shall be reserved to the managers, or trustees, of these
schools respectively, the designation of the teachers to be appointed therein ;
who shall be subjected to the examination of a committee of the Public
School Society, shall be fully qualified for the duties of their appointment,
and of unexceptionable moral character ; or, in the event of the trustees or
managers failing to present individuals for these situations of that descrip-
tion, then individuals having like qualifications, and of unexceptionable
character, to be selected and appointed by the Public School Society, who
shall be acceptable to the managers or trustees of the schools to which they
shall be appointed ; but no person to be continued as a teacher in either of
the schools referred to, against the wishes of the trustees or managers
thereof.

2d. That the schools shall be open at all times to the inspection of any
authorized agent or officer of the city or State government, with liberty to
visit the same and examine the books used therein, or the teachers, touching
the course and system of instruction pursued in the schools, or in relation to
any matter connected therewith.

The undersigned are willing that, in the superintendence of their schools,
every specified requirement of any and every law passed by the Legislature
of the State, or the ordinances of the Common Council, to guard against
abuse in the matter of common school education, shall be rigidly enforced
and exacted by the competent public authorities.

They believe that the benevolent object of every such law is to bring the
means of a plain education within the reach of the child of every poor man,
without damaging their religion, whatever it may be, or the religious rights
of any such child or parent.

It is in consequence of v?bat they consider the damaging of their religion
and their religious rights, in the schools of the Public School Society, that
they have been obliged to withdraw their children from them. The facts
which they have already submitted, and which have been more than sus-
tained by the sentiments uttered on behalf of the Society, in the late dis-
cussion, prove that they were not mistaken.

As regards the organization of their schools, they are willing that they
should be under the same police and 'regulation as those of the Public
School Society ; the same hours, the same order, the same exercises, even the
same inspection.

LI NDLEY: MU RP A S :

PROPOSITION ON BEHALF OF THE SCHOOL SOCIETY. 321

But the books to be used for exercises in learning to read or spell, in his-
tory, geography, and all such elementary knowledge as could have a ten-
dency to operate on their hearts and minds in reference to their religion,
must be, so far as Catholic children are concerned, and no farther, such as
they shall judge proper to put in their hands. But nothing of their dog-
mas, nothing against the creed of any other denomination, shall be intro-
duced.

(Signed) HUGH SWEENY,

JAMES W. McKEON.

XEW YOEK, December 19, 1840.

PROPOSITION OX BEHALF OF THE SCHOOL SOCIETY.

In compliance with the request of the committee of the Board of Alder-
men, the undersigned committee of the New York Public School Society
submit the following propositions as a basis of a compromise with their
Roman Catholic fellow-citizens on the subject of the public schools ; which
propositions they are willing to support before the trustees of the Society,
and which they believe will be sanctioned by that board.

The Trustees of the New York Public School Society will remove from
the class-books in the schools all matters which may be pointed out as offen-
sive to their Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, should any thing objectionable
yet remain in them.

They will also exclude from the school libraries (the use of which is per-
mitted to the pupils, but not required of them) every work written with a
view to prejudice the mind of the reader against the tenets or practices of
the Roman Catholic Church, or the general tendency of which is to produce
the same effect.

They will receive and examine any books which may be recommended
for the use of the schools ; and should such books be adapted to their sys-
tem of instruction, and void of any matter offensive to other denominations,
they shall be introduced so soon as opportunity may be afforded by a call
for new books.

Any suggestions in reference to alterations in the plan of instruction or
course of studies, which may be offered, shall receive prompt consideration ;
and, if not inconsistent with the general system of instruction now prevail-
ing in the schools, nor with the conscientious rights of other denominations,
they shall be adopted.

The building situated in Mulberry street, now occupied by Roman Cath-
olic schools, shall, if required for the use of the Public School Society, be
purchased or hired, on equitable terms, by the trustees, should such an
arrangement be desired.

Every effort will be made by the Trustees of the Public School Society
to prevent any occurrence in the schools which might be calculated to
wound the feelings of Roman Catholic children, or to impair their confi-
dence in, or diminish their respect for, the religion of their parents.

Anxious to keep open every avenue to such an arrangement as will lead
to a general attendance of the Roman Catholic children at the public
21

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

schools, and fully aware that some things may have escaped their observa-
tion which might he modified without violation of the conscientious rights
of others, the undersigned wish it to be distinctly understood that, in offer-
ing the foregoing propositions as the basis of an arrangement, it is not in-
tended to exclude other propositions which the Roman Catholics may make,
provided they do not interfere with the principles by which the trustees feel
themselves bound.

(Signed) SAMUEL F. MOTT, \

A. P. HAL.SEY, > Committee.

J. SMYTH ROGERS, i

NEW YORK, December 19, 1910.

Your committee deem it proper to remark, in vindication of the School
Society, that they were only one of the numerous remonstrants against the
prayer of the petitioners. Their views were represented in the late discus-
sion before the board only by their legal advisers, Messrs. Sedgewick and
Ketchum. The other gentlemen who participated in the discussion repre-
sented other bodies which are not in any manner connected with them.
Sentiments were uttered by some of them which the School Society do not
entertain, and for which they are not justly accountable. This explanation
is deemed proper, in consequence of a remark in the above proposition of
the petitioners which appears to be founded on an erroneous impression.
The unwillingness of the petitioners to agree to any terms which did not
recognize the distinctive character of their schools as Catholic schools, or
which would exclude sectarian supervision from them entirely, was the
obstacle to a compromise, which could not be overcome. However much
we may lament the consequences, we are not disposed to question the right
of our Catholic fellow-citizens to keep their children separated from inter-
course with other children ; but we do not believe the Common Council
would be justified in facilitating such an object. They have an unquestion-
able right to pursue such a course, if the dictates of conscience demand it
of them ; and they have a just claim to be sustained by the Common Coun-
cil in the exercise of that right ; but they cannot justly claim public aid to
carry out such intentions, unless they can show that the public good would
be promoted by it, and that such public aid can be extended to them with-
out trespassing upon the conscientious rights of others. But if any religious
society or sect should be allowed the exclusive right to select the books,
appoint or nominate the teachers, or introduce sectarian peculiarities of any
kind into a public school, the exercise of such a right, in any one particular,
would very clearly constitute such school a sectarian school, and its support
at the public expense would, in the opinion of the committee, be a trespass
upon the conscientious rights of every taxpayer who disapproved of the
religion inculcated by the sect to which such school might be attached ;
because they would be paying taxes for the support of a religion which they
disapproved. Your committee are, therefore, fully of the opinion that the
granting of the prayer of the petitioners, or conforming to the terms of the
proposals submitted by the committee who represented them, would render

KEPOST OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE. 323

the school system liable to the charge of violating the rights of conscience
a charge which would be fatal to the system, because it would invalidate
its just claim to public patronage.

The proposition of the committee who represent the Public School Soci-
ety appears to us to have been conceived in a liberal spirit. Your commit-
tee think it goes as far as a due regard to the true objects of the institution
would warrant, and seems to open an avenue which we would fain hope may
yet lead to a satisfactory arrangement. Both propositions exhibit more lib-
erality, probably, than either party had before given the other credit for ;
and we hope that result may prove to be an important step toward the ac-
complishment of an object which every patriot must desire with intense
anxiety. Your committee respectfully ask to be discharged from the further
consideration of the subject.

WILLIAM CHAMBERLAIN,
ROBERT JONES,
JOSIAH RICH.

The report of the committee being read, the question on its
acceptance and adoption was put, and decided in the affirmative,
as follows :

Ayes The President (E. F. Purdy), Aldermen Balis, "Wood-
hull, Benson, Jones, Rich, Chamberlain, Campbell, Hatfield,
Jarvis, Smith, Nichols, Graham, Cooper, and Nash 15.

Nay Alderman Pentz 1.

The application of the Roman Catholics for the school
moneys was thus negatived, and the committee were discharged.

The proceedings in the Board of Assistant Aldermen were
interesting and important. The various petitions and remon-
strances were referred to the Committee on Arts, Sciences, and
Schools, whose report was submitted on the 27th of April. A
brief statement of the facts, together with the report of the com-
mittee, will be found in the Appendix marked B.

324 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XI.

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL-BOOKS. 1840-1841.

Propositions of Bishop Dubois relative to School-Books Rev. Felix Varela Commit
tee of Examination and Correspondence Appointed Report of the Committee- -
Letter of Rev. Felix Varela Letter to the Freeman's Journal by Rev. John
Power, D.D. Letter to Dr. Powers from the Committee Address of the Roman
Catholics Reply of the Trustees of the Society Letter to Bishop Hughes-
Reply of Bishop Hughes Letter of David Graham to the Society Reply of the
Committee Expurgation of School-Books.

THE exciting discussion relative to the distribution of the
school fund brought into requisition all the arguments and objec-
tions on both sides of the question, and, among the grounds of
complaint, it was urged by the parties who advocated a change
in the apportionment of the school money, that the text-books in
use in the public schools contained passages which were not
merely objectionable to Roman Catholics, but hostile to their
faith, some of them being even " defamatory," and at the same
time false in their statements of historical facts.

The trustees of the Society were anxious to remove every
objection, and took measures to secure the fullest information
upon the subject from the highest authorities in the Churcb,
among laymen as well as the clergy, in order that the obnoxious
passages might be detected and removed. This measure formed,
at the time, the topic of animated discussion, and the fkcts are
worthy of detail as an important event in the history of the
school system.

The reader will have noticed, in the chapter devoted to the
controversy of 1834, between Bishop Dubois and the trustees
relative to Public School No. 5, in Mott street, that he submit-
ted several propositions to the Board of Trustees, the third of
which was as follows :

3d. That no books shall be received in the school but such as will have
been submitted to the bishop as free from sectarian principles, or calumnies

COMMITTEE APPOINTED TO EXAMINE BOOKS. 325

against his religion ; and as many otherwise good books may require only
that such passages should be expunged, or left out in binding, that, on the
recommendation of the bishop, the board will order it to be done.

At that time no further action was taken in the matter, as
the trustees could not concede the general proposition of the
bishop, and no reply to their letter was ever received.

At a meeting of the trustees held at Public School No. 5, for
the annual examination on March 24, 1840, the Vice-President
stated that Rev. Felix Varela had made a request to be fur-
nished with a set of the reading-books used in the schools,-and
the following resolution was immediately adopted :

Resolved, That the Secretary be requested to send a copy of each of said
books to Mr. Varela for his inspection.

The following resolution was also unanimously adopted :

Resolved, That the board continues to entertain an anxious desire to
remove every objection which the members of the Catholic Church may
have to the books used or the studies pursued in the public schools, and
that the Secretary be requested to renew the assurance given on a former
occasion, that any suggestion or remarks which the Rev. Mr. Varela may
deem it right to make, on his own behalf and that of his associates, after
said books have been examined, shall receive the most serious and respect-
ful consideration of this board.

The resolutions and books were ordered to be transmitted to
Mr. Varela, and soon after the receipt he made a reply. At
the meeting of the trustees held on the 1st of May, Mr. Yarela's
response was read, and the following resolution was adopted :

Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to examine the books in
use in the public schools, including those in the libraries, with a view to
ascertain and report whether they contain any thing derogatory to the
Roman Catholic Church or any of its religious tenets, with power to com-
municate with such persons of that Church as may be authorized to meet

them in reference to such alterations.

The committee so appointed consisted of J. Smyth Rogers,
M.D., Joseph B. Collins, Samuel F. Mott, James F. Depeyster,
and Robert Hogan, M.D. *

At the meeting of the Society held on the 25th of Septem-
ber, called for the consideration of the action of the committee,
the following report was presented and adopted, and the recom-

326 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

mendation that the subject be referred to the Executive Com
mittee was adopted :

To the Trustees of the Public School Society :

The committee appointed on the 1st of May, 1840, to examine the school-
books, confer with the Roman Catholic clergy, &c., RESPECTFULLY REPORT :

That they have devoted much time in discharging to the best of their
ability, the important duty assigned them. Soon after their appointment,
the secretary placed in their hands a letter from the Rev. Dr. Varela, with a
few remarks regarding the school-books, copies of which had been placed in
his hand under the resolution of the board, passed on 24th of March. A
copy of Dr. Varela's letter is appended, marked A.

The committee early sought and obtained an interview with the Very
Rev. Dr. Power, Vicar-General of the Roman Catholic Diocese of New
York, during which he treated the subject with much apparent frankness
and candor, but gave very little encouragement to expect a satisfactory
arrangement of the points at issue. It resulted, however, in his requesting
a copy of the school-books, with an understanding that, when he had ex-
amined them, he would communicate with your committee. After a lapse
of several weeks, and when the committee were in daily expectation of a
communication from Dr. Power, a letter under his signature appeared in the
Freeman's Journal, a copy of which is in the appendix, marked C. This
unlooked-for course on the part of the reverend gentleman induced the
committee to address a letter to him, as per copy herewith, marked D, to
which the committee have not received any reply. About the middle of
August, the Roman Catholics of this city issued an " Address to the People
of the City and State of New York," urging their claims to a portion of the
school money ; see copy, marked E. The extraordinary character of por-
tions of this address appeared to the committee to call for a prompt reply.
They accordingly prepared, and, with the sanction of the Executive Com-
mittee, issued a reply, a copy of which is annexed, marked F. Subsequent
to this, the committee had an informal interview with the Right Rev. Dr.
Hughes, Roman Catholic Bishop Coadjutor of New York, which resulted in
a request on his part to be furnished with copies of the school-books, and
as each member of the committee confidently supposed, for the purpose of
uniting with the committee in ascertaining objectionable passages. The
books were sent, and a letter was addressed to the bishop, a copy of which
is annexed herewith, marked G. The answer was received, marked H.

By referring to the report of the committee on " Arts and Sciences, and
Common Schools " of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, to whom was re-
ferred the petition of the Roman Catholics (p. 352 of Document No. 80), it
is stated that the committee had " been informed, by the officers of the
Public School Society, that no books are used in the schools which reflect in
any degree upon the Catholic Church." Your committee are unable to
account for this misapprehension on tho part of the Board of Assistant
Aldermen. By reference to the annexed copy of a note addressed to David
Graham, Jr., Esq., chairman of that committee, in reply to one from him,

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 327

marked I, it will be perceived that your committee expressly acknowledged
the existence of such passages. Their answer is subjoined, marked J.

From the foregoing statement, and the accompanying documents, it will
bo seen that your committee has been actuated throughout by the motives
which influenced the Board of Trustees in creating it that is, a sincere
desire to remove, as far as may be done, without sacrificing the rights and
feelings of others, every obstacle to the attendance of Catholic children at
the public schools. It is now evident that the cooperation of the Catholic
clergy in effecting an expurgation of the books cannot be relied on. The
committee is fully aware of the importance of such aid in order to secure
their influence in promoting the attendance of Catholic children, and, possi-
bly, in preventing the necessity of a second revision. But it is believed that
the time has arrived for the trustees to accomplish the work without them.
If it does not have the effect so greatly desired, the trustees will have the
satisfaction of reflecting that they have discharged their duty in the prem-
ises. Under a strong impression of the duty which devolves on the trustees
to expunge words and passages clearly objectionable, your committee had
made some progress in the work ; but a reference to the resolution appoint-
ing them showed that their powers do not extend beyond reporting the
offensive parts. They have, therefore, asked for the present meeting, in
order to lay before the board the parts adverted to, and obtain permission to
continue the work.

In conclusion, the committee have to report that a petition is now bfbre
the Board of Aldermen, with a renewed request for aid to support the
Roman Catholic schools. As the petition has not yet been printed, the com-
mittee is unable to furnish a copy. It is with feelings, more of sorrow than
indignation, that this committee have to add that this petition notwith-
standing the repeated assurances made to the Roman Catholic clergy, that
every obnoxious word should be expunged from the school-books,, and that
the trustees only await their aid in selecting them contains some quota-
tions, and again urges them, as a reason why they cannot permit their chil-
dren to attend the public schools.

The committee respectfully suggest whether, under existing circuna^
stances, it may not be expedient to refer further movements in opposing all
applications for school money for schools connected with churches, to the
Executive Committee, particularly as that committee will meet nearly every
day for some time to come, in making the usual annual examinations of the
schools.

All which is repcctfully submitted,

JOSEPH B. COLLINS; Chairman pr* tern.

NEW YOBK, September 25, 1840.

KS-w Yonx, April 8, 1810.

DEAK SIR : I received the books you had the kindness of sending to me,
according to a resolution of the Board of Trustees of the Common Schools,
in consequence of an information given by one of them as to my wish of.

328 TIIK I'l'UUC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

examining said books. I thank the Board of Trustees for this mark of
good feelings, and, in order to comply with their request, I will express my
opinion on the subject.

The '' Scripture Lessons " present, in the very title-page, an attack
against the Catholic Church ; for it is expressly stated that they are without
note or comment, so as to call the atteution of a child, and to tell him :
"Your Church is wrong in giving the Bible always with notes ; disregard
her, and read the Scriptures without any note or comment, and find out o
religion for yourself." This is to establish at once the Protestant fundamen-
tal principle, and to make the public schools completely sectarian.

In the Geography (p. 143), it is said that the Catholic clergy, who have
vast influence, oppose the diffusion of general knowledge ; and, in the very
next page, it is said that Catholics pay great reverence to the priests. It is
very easy to perceive that a child will think very little of such a reverence-,
and lose every regard for such a ministry.

There are also, in the description of Italy, some passages which evi-
dently tend to diminish the consideration that a Catholic child has for tho
Catholic Church. I also noticed, in the " Reading-Book," the description
of the character of Luther, with some expressions which, no doubt, will
please the Protestants, but imply an attack against the Catholic Church.

By making these few observations, I do not allude to the question as to
the petition made by the Catholics to obtain a part of the school funds, but
I merely respond to the kindness of the Board of Trustees in sending me
the books for examination.

With great respect, your obedient

FELIX VABELA.
'To A. P. HALSEY, Secretary of Public School Society.

To the Editor of the New York Freeman's Journal :

SIR : In compliance with your request, I must, in justice to myself, say
jfhat my .duties are of so heterogeneous a nature as to leave me but little
time to arrange my thoughts to my own satisfaction on any subject. Yet,
as the education of Catholic children has been always to me a matter of
deep interest, I claim familiarity with the subject, and can therefore ap-
proach it with less timidity and reluctance.

You, sir, are fully aware that the enemies of the Catholic priesthood say
that we keep the people in ignorance, in order to promote our own interests.
"This charge has often been repeated, even in this enlightened community, by
persons who cannot be ignorant of the efforts we are daily making to teach
those under our care how to employ the faculties which God gave them to
the best advantage.

Our sincere wish, sir, is to have instilled into their minds a clear notion
of the compact and duties of society. We wish them to comprehend the
comforts as well as the restraints of civilization, knowing that they are part
of >the materials which will form the edifice of the State, and which, by the
simple process of a more graceful order and position, will contribute to its
beauty and permanency.

The Catholic clergy glory in an association with the charms of litera-
ture. They consider education, next to the gospel to be the best boon of
Heaven to man. They know that it infuses a divinity into his spirit.

" Doctrina scd vim promovct insitam
Reetiqjie cultus pectora roborant."

They know that nations have been rendered formidable by knowledge.
They know that public liberty has never been injured by understanding its

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 329

true meauing. They know that freedom has not been abused because soci-
ety has learned to comprehend and obey the law. When, sir, I open the
historic page, and learn that the bravest people whose history we can trace,
loved and cultivated letters when I see Sparta making the education of her
sons the public care, and securing the culture of their minds by a public
provision with all this in view, sir, I should despise myself were I for one
instant to place an obstacle in the way of public instruction, were it based
on a proper foundation.

You, Mr. Editor, will agree with me, that the object of public instruc-
tion is to fit man for society. It is also an axiom, that man has various
duties to fulfil, both of a public and private nature, toward the community.
He has also, as a rational and accountable being, duties to perform toward
his Maker. Now, without religion, what security have we that those duties
will be punctually discharged ? What guarantee have we that man will be
honest in the dark, and without a witness ? We have no pledge, sir, that
the claims of society will be answered ; and I therefore assert that a purely
intellectual education will not fit a man for society. On this principle, sir,
I am decidedly opposed to the education which is now given in our " pub-
lic schools." It is not based, as in a Christian community it ought to be, on
the Christian religion. Its tendency is to make deists.

There are, it is true, beautiful lessons in the class-books on the providence
of God, the immortality of the soul, man's accountability, &c. ; but these
lessons do not constitute Christianity. We learn them from the light of
reason alone, while the positive ordinances of the Christian religion are
learned from revelation ; and, as there is not the slightest allusion to these
ordinances, we say that pure deism alone is taught in these schools.

My second exception is founded on the sectarian character of the public
schools. The Holy Scriptures are read every day, with the restriction that
no specific tenets are to be inculcated. Here, sir, we find the great demar-
cating principle between the Catholic Church and the sectaries introduced
silently. The Catholic Church tells her children that they must be taught
their religion by AUTHORITY. The sects say, Read the Bible, judge for your-
selves. The Bible is read in the public schools, the children are allowed to
judge for themselves. The Protestant principle is therefore acted upon,
silently inculcated, and the schools are sectarian. It may be said that the
Bible is introduced for the mere purpose of teaching its morality. But
recollect, sir, that the morality of the Bible is founded on the law of nature,
and is a clearer evolution or expression of that law ; and as the motive for
introducing the Bible into the schools is the inculcation of its morality only,
a severe logic forces me to say, that the holy Book is made ancillary to pure
deism.

There are libraries connected with our public schools, and it is notorious,
that books which to Catholics must be exceptionable, as containing the
most malevolent and foul attacks on their religion, were placed in the way
of Catholic children, no doubt for the very laudable purpose of teaching
them to abhor and despise that monster called popery.

How, then, sir, can we think of sending, under these circumstances, our
children to those schools, in which every artifice is resorted to in order to
seduce them from their religion ?

One word to parents, before I close this hasty communication. If it be
of acknowledged moment that parents should engage in those duties which
concern the temporal welfare of their children, should not the most ani-
mated zeal be indulged in fixing and giving life to every moral and religious
principle ? In moral and religious acquirements consist the chief dignity
and happiness of man. Deprive him these, and you leave him ignorant of
the true grounds of rectitude and honor, and dry up the purest sources of
human joy ; you degrade him in the creation, and render him an improper
object for the future reward of his Maker. Many parents, sir, by their in-

330 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

attention to this part of their duty, are the cause of ruin to those whom
they professedly love, and, instead of being their best friends, become their
worst enemies.

The objections to our claims for a due portion of the school fund are, I
think, urged in bad faith. It is said that the State cannot lend itself to the
support of sectarian principles. But recollect, sir, that this objection is
urged by those whose conduct is truly sectarian, as far as regards the man-
agement of the public schools. This, I think, I have abundantly proved.

When the common school fund was created, it was not considered un-
constitutional to extend it to the charity schools in connection with the
incorporated religious societies in this city ; and, if I am not much mistaken,
the philanthropic and enlightened statesman with whom the measure origi-
nated, thought that the best application of the fund lay in giving it to those
who would make a proper use of it, by giving that instruction which alone
can save man from the tyranny of his passions, and make him a good mem-
ber of society.

Would it not, Mr. Editor, be a libel on the memory of the founders of
our glorious Constitution, to pervert that instrument to such an extent as to
think that they, in disclaiming a civil preference for any form of Christianity,
thereby intended that the public education of the country should not be
founded on religion ? In this respect I apprehend they did not depart from
the rule of all wise legislators, and never contemplated that our charity
schools should not participate in the fund set apart for public education,
because the catechisms of the different religious societies of which this re-
public is composed would be taught in them.

I, sir, would be the last man to wish that the State would spend its
means in supporting sectarianism ; and the principle that induces me to
make this avowal, bids me also to express my conviction that, unless public
instruction be connected with religious instruction, there is no guarantee for
the permanence of our civil institutions. I would, then, most respectfully
say to our rulers, Let mental cultivation be general, but let it have religion
for its basis. This will be the surest foundation not only for your internal
improvement, but for the increase of your general prosperity. This will be
the means by which your rank and consideration are to be raised into com-
petition with the foremost of polished nations.

I am, sir, with great respect, your very humble servant,

JOHN POWEU, Vicar-General of the Diocese of New York.

NEW YOEK, July 9, 1840.

NEW YOHK, August, 1840.

The undersigned, on behalf of the committee appointed by the trustees:
of the Public School Society " to examine the books used in the public
schools, including those in the libraries, with a view to ascertain and report
whether they contain any thing derogatory to the Roman Catholic Church,
or any of its religious tenets, with power to communicate with such persons
of that Church as may be authorized to meet them in reference to such alter-
ations," referring to the interview had with you on the evening of the 14th
of May last, on the subject of their appointment, instruct me to inquire
whether you have examined the books placed in your hands, agreeably to
the request then made ; and, if so, whether you will favor them with the
result of your investigations. The committee has steadily prosecuted the
objects indicated in the resolution appointing it, but does not feel prepared
to report to the Board of Trustees until they have the benefit of those in-
quiries and objections which your feelings, and the duties of your station,
must alike prompt. The committee is anxious to discharge the duty assigned
it without delay. It is therefore very desirable to hear from you as early ae
your convenience will permit.

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 331

I am further instructed to say, that the committee cannot, in justice to
themselves or to you, close this communication without expressing the regret
and surprise caused by portions of a letter under your signature, which
appeared in the New York Freeman's Journal of the 12th ult. A vivid recol-
lection of the frankness with which you treated this deeply-interesting sub-
ject at the interview referred to, and the voluntary avowal then made of
your entire satisfaction with the explanation given by the committee of the
accidental introduction into the school libraries of a volume of the " Tem-
perance Tales," in which there was one story justly obnoxious to Catholic
censure, which, as you are aware, was withdrawn when discovered, and
which, you remarked, might, under similar circumstances, have found its
way into a Catholic library, still rests upon their minds.

These facts contrast so strongly with the imputations of base and dis-
honorable motives in which you have seen fit to indulge, and with the im-
portance into which you attempt to magnify the single story referred to,
that the committee will not venture to express the feelings which such a
course on your part must necessarily give rise to. They would gladly find
an adequate apology for this unmerited and unlooked-for attack in the
" haste " with which you say it was written, and in the fact, as you allege,
that your duties are of so " heterogeneous a nature as to leave you but little
time to arrange your thoughts to your own satisfaction on any subject ; "
and they now submit to your more calm and deliberate consideration wheth-
er, pending an examination of the school-books, with a view to their expur-
gation, in which you promised cooperation, it would not have been more
consonant with propriety and the generally acknowledged courtesies of life,
if you, had suspended your public denunciations of a large body of your
fellow-citizens until they had furnished evidence cf " bad faith," by refusing
to expunge as they assured you they would do every thing in the school-
books which might be pointed out as objectionable by yourselves and asso-
ciates in religious faith.

On behalf of the committee.

ADDRESS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS TO THEIR FELLOW-CITIZENS OF
THE CITY AND STATE OF NEW YORK.

FELLOW- CITIZENS : We, the Roman Catholics of the city of New York,
feeling that both our civil and religious rights are abridged and injuriously
affected by the operation of the "common school system," and by the con-
struction which the Common Council have lately put on the laws authoriz-
ing that system, beg leave to state our grievances, with the deep confidence
in the justice of the American character that, if our complaints are well-
founded, you will assist us in obtaining the redress to which we are entitled.
If they are not well founded, we are ready to abandon them.

We are Americans and American citizens. If some of us are foreigners,
it is only by the accident of birth. As citizens, our ambition is to be Ameri-
cans ; and if we cannot be so by birth, we are so by choice and preference
which we deem an equal evidence of our affection and attachment to the
laws and Constitution of the country. But our children, for whose rights as
well as our own we contend in this matter, are Americans by nativity. So
that we are, like yourselves, either natives of the soil, or like your fathers
from the Eastern world, having become Americans under the sanction of
the Constitution, by the birthright of selection and preference.

We hold, therefore, the same ideas of our rights that you hold of yours.
We wish not to diminish yours, but only to secure and enjoy our own. Nei-
ther have we the slightest suspicion that you would wish us to be deprived
of any privilege which you claim for yourselves. If, then, we have suffered

332 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. SOCIETY.

by the operation of the " common school system " in the city of New York,
it is to be imputed rather to our own supineness, than to any wish on your
part that we should be aggrieved.

The intention of the Legislature of this State in appropriating public
funds for the purposes of popular schools must have been (whatever construc-
tion the lawyers of the Common Council put upon it), to diffuse the bless-
ings of education among the people, without encroachment on the civil and
religious rights of the citizens. It was, it must have ~been, to have planted in
the minds of youth principles of knowledge and virtue, which would secure
to the State a future population of enlightened and virtuous, instead of
ignorant and vicious members. This was certainly their general intention,
and no other would have justified their bountiful appropriation of the pub-
lic funds.

But, in carrying out the measure, this patriotic and wise intention has
been lost sight of; and in the city of New York at least, under the late
arbitrary determination of the present Common Council, such intention of
the Legislature is not only disregarded, but the high public ends to which
it was directed are manifestly being defeated.

Mere knowledge, according to the late decision, mere secular knowledge,
is what we are to understand by education, in the sense of the Legislature
of New York. But if you should allow the smallest ray of religion to enter
the school-room if you should teach the children that there is an eye which
sees every wicked thought, that there is a God, a state of rewards and pun-
ishments beyond this life, then, according to the decision of the Common
Council, you forfeit all claim to the bounty of the State, although your
scholars should have become as learned as Newton or wise as Socrates ! Is,
then, we would ask you, fellow-citizens, a practical rejection of the Chris-
tian religion in all its forms, and without the substitution of any other, the
basis on which you would form the principles and character of the future
citizens of this great commonwealth ? Are the meek lessons of religion and
virtue, which pass from the mother's lips into the heart of her child, to be
chilled and frozen by icy contact with a system of education thus inter-
preted ?

Is enlightened villany so precious in the public eye, that science is to be
cultivated, whilst virtue is neglected, and religion, its only adequate ground-
work, is formally and authoritatively proscribed ? Is it your wish that vice
should thus be elevated from its low and natural 9ompanionship with igno-
rance and be married to knowledge imparted at the public expense ?

We do not say that even the Common Council profess to require that the
Christian religion should be excluded from the common schools. They only
contend that the inculcation of each or any of its doctrines would be secta-
rianism ; and thus, lest sectarianism should be admitted, Christianity is sub-
stantially excluded. Christianity in this country is made up of the different
creeds of the various denominations, and, since all these creeds are pro-
scribed, the Christian religion necessarily is banished from the halls of pub-
lic education.

The objections which we have thus far stated, fellow-citizens, ought to
appear to you, in our opinion, as strong to you as they do to us. For,
though we may differ in our definition of the religion of Christ, still we all
.generally profess to believe, to revere it, as the foundation of moral virtue
and of social happiness. Now, we know of no fixed principle of infidelity
except the negation of the Christian religion. The adherents of this prin-
ciple may differ on other points of skepticism, but in rejecting Christianity
they are united. Their confession of faith is a belief in the negative of
Christianity, but they reject it in toto ; whilst the Common Council rejects it
only in all its several parts, under the name of sectarianism.

It is manifest, therefore, that the public school system in the city of New
York is entirely favorable to the sectarianism of infidelity, and opposed only

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 333

to that of positive Christianity. And is it your wish, fellow-citizens is it
your wish more than ours, that infidelity should have a predominancy and
advantages in the public schools which are denied to Christianity ? Is it
your wish that your children shall be brought up under a system of educa-
tion, so called, which shall detach them from the Christian belief which you
profess, whatever it may be, and prepare them for initiation into the myste-
ries of Fanny Wrightism, or any other scheme of infidelity which may come
in their way ? Are you willing that your children, educated at your ex-
pense, shall be educated on a principle antagonist to the Christian religion ?
that you shall have the toil and labor of cultivating the ground and sow-
ing the seed, in order that infidelity may reap the harvest ?

With us it is matter of surprise that conscientious persons, of all Chris-
tian denominations, have not been struck with this bad feature of the sys-
tem as understood by the Common Council. A new sectarianism antagonist
to all Christian sects has been generated in, not the common schools, as the
State originally understood the term, but in the pullic schools of the Public
School Society. This new sectarianism is adopted by the Common Council
of this city, and is supported, to the exclusion of all others, at the public
expense. Have the conscientious Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, Lu-
therans, and others, no scruples of conscience at seeing their children, and
the children of their poor, brought up under this new sectarianism ? It is
not for us to say ; but for ourselves we can speak : and we cannot be parties
to such a system except by legal compulsion and against conscience.

Let us not be mistaken. We do not deny to infidels, for unbelief, any
right to which any other citizen is entitled.

But we hold that the common school system, as it has been lately .inter-
preted by the Common Council of the city, necessarily transfers to the inter-
est of infidel sectarianism the advantages which are denied to Christian sec-
tarianism of every kind.

Again, let us not be misunderstood. We are opposed to the admission
of sectarianism of any and of every kind, whether* Christian or anti-Chris-
tian, in the schools that are supported by the State.

But we hold, also, that, so far as the commonwealth is concerned in the
character of her future citizens, even the least perfect religion of Christian
sectarianism would'be better than no religion at all. And we hold that, of
all bad uses to which the public money can be perverted, among the worst
would be the expending of it, in the shape of a bounty to education, for the
spread and propagation of sectarian infidelity. Far be it from us to sup-
pose that either the Legislature, Common Council, or School Commissioners
ever intended such perversion. We hold, nevertheless, that the consequence
which we have pointed out, and the apprehension of which is one of the
reasons why we Roman Catholics cannot conscientiously participate in the
benefits of these schools, is necessary and inevitable. The education which
each'denomination might, under proper restraints and vigilance, give to its
own poor, has passed and become a monopoly in the hands of " The Public
School Society of New York." That corporation is in high and almost
exclusive standing with the Common Council.*

* " The Public School Society " was originally incorporated for " the education of
poor children who do not belong to, or are not provided for by, any religious society."
The purpose was humane, patriotic, and benevolent. But, alas ! it has been most
sadly departed from. One of the motives indeed, the principal one which they set
forth in their petition for a charter from the people and Legislature of the State, was,
in their own language, " the benefits which would result to society from the education
of such children, BY IMPLANTING IN THEIR MINDS THE PRINCIPLES OF RELIGIOX AND
MORALITY." This was in 1805. In 1808, they obtained a considerable appropriation
of the public money, independent of the school fund ; and had themselves designated
the " Free-School Society of New York," with an extension of their powers reaching

334: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Now, the education which is imparted on the principle of the schools of
that Society is, in our decided opinion, calculated, from its defectiveness, to
disappoint the benevolent hope of legislative bounty, and to make bad and
dangerous citizens. We all know that the belief of another world is, ulti-
mately, at the base of all that is just and sacred in this. The love of God,
the hope of future rewards, the dread of future punishment one or all of
these constitute and must be the foundation of conscience in the breast of
every man. Where neither of them exists, conscience is but an idle word.
Religion is but the development of these important truths, governing man
by their internal influence on his passions and affections, regulating the
order of his duties to God, to his country, to his neighbor and himself. If
they have their full force, he will be a man of justice, probity, and truth.
And in proportion as such men are numerous in the commonwealth, in the
same proportion will the State enjoy security and happiness from within,
honor and high estimation from without.

Now, holding these truths as indisputable, we ask you, fellow-citizens, to
say whether this not common, but public school system, as it is now ad-
ministered, under the interpretation of the Common Council, is calculated
to raise up for your successors in the State men of this description ; or,
rather, whether it does not promise you men of a different and diametrically
opposite character ? The Common Council makes it a condition an essen-
tial one of those schools that religion shall not be taught, for this would
be sectarianism. And thus the intellect is cultivated, if you please, but the

" all children who are proper objects of gratuitous education." In 1810, they obtained
an act (for they never slumbered), putting the right of membership at a contribution
of fifty dollars, and providing for them another extra appropriation. Thus they con-
tinued from year to year, until they finally got themselves denominated " The Public
School Society of New York," and from that time labelled their schools, ns if they
belonged to the community at large, " Public Schools." They are not, certainly, in the
ordinary sense of the terms, what they profess to be. They are merely called " public
schools," but they belong to a private corporation, who have crept up into high favor
with the powers that be, and have assumed the exclusive right of monopolizing the
education of youth, and of receiving exclusively the public funds set apart for that
benevolent and patriotic purpose.

But there is one circumstance which brands their exclusive pretension with the
stamp of rare and peculiar arrogance. It is, that they claim the common school funds
on the express ground of defeating the very end for which their charter was obtained,
viz., " the benefits that would result to society from the education of (such) children,
by implanting in their minds the principles of religion and morality." Now, in their
apostasy from their first profession, they claim the merit of benefiting society by see-
ing that, in their schools, no principle of religion and morality shall be implanted !
The same body, under different names, obtaining a charter and high pecuniary privi-
leges in consideration of their doing a certain good work ; and yet coming out openly
to claim exclusively the bounty granted for that purpose, on the ground that they, and
they alone, have taken the precaution that the good work shall not be performed in
co/inection with education. Not only will they not perform it themselves, but they
will not allow others to accomplish it. What would have been a benefit to society
when they applied for a charter, would be a terrible injury now. And if, by chance,
" the principles of religion and morality were implanted in the minds of children,"
there would result nothing but sectarianism, bickering, and religious wars, and, over
and above, the equilibrium of the American Constitution would be awfully disturbed,
the rights of conscience would be violated, and disasters innumerable would be the
result.

(VIDE the apprehensions of the lame and laboring report put forth, in April, on
behalf of the public school system, as emanating from a committee of the Board of
Assistant Aldermen, against the petitions of the Roman Catholics, Scotch Presbyte-
rians, and others, who have the misfortune to believe still that society would be bene-
fitted by having " principles of religion and monility implanted in tbe minds of chil-
dren.")

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 335

heart and moral character are left to their natural depravity and wildness.
This is not education ; and, above all, this is not the education calculated to
make good citizens.

Education cultivates all the faculties of the human BOU!, the will as well
as the understanding and memory.

The public school system not only does not cultivate the will (for this
can hardly be done without the aid of religion), but it almost emancipates
the will, even in the tender age of childhood, in reference to the subject of
religion itself. We have found in the hands of our children lessons setting
forth, in substance, that, after all, humane feelings and actions are about the
best religion.

In these schools you give them knowledge without the moderating prin-
ciple which will direct its use, or prevent its being applied to the worst of
purposes. What principle do you inculcate that will check the lie that is
rising to their lips, or cause confusion on their brow when they have uttered
it ? None. Religion could accomplish this, but religion is excluded. If
you tell them there is a God who will punish them, the atheist father, who
thinks himself an honest man without God, and who thinks his own opin-
ions good enough for his child, will appeal to the decision of the Common
Council, and show that you violate the condition of the grant in favor of
common schools, by speaking of God, or any thing sectarian. What prin-
ciples of self-restraint are inculcated in this spurious system of education,
which leaves the will of the pupil to riot in the fierceness of unrestrained
lusts ? " Train up a child in the way in which he should walk, and when
he is old he will not depart from it," is the maxim of one who judged of
human nature with more than human penetration. But the Common Coun-
cil has reversed it, and decided that the child will train up itself, provided
you give it knowledge without religion.

Thus far, fellow-citizens, we have stated our objections to the present
system of common school education, not as they affect us more than any
other denomination of Christians.

We have stated them in view of the bearing which that sytem is likely
to have on interests in which you are concerned as much as, or more than,
ourselves, viz., religion, morals, individual and social happiness, and the wel-
fare of the State.

We believe it was the warning voice of the illustrious Washington,
among the most soletmrwords of the patriot, breathed into the ear of his
beloved country, to beware of the man who would inculcate morality without
religion.

We now come to the statement of grievances which affect us in our civil
and religious rights as Roman Catholics.

Under the guarantee of liberty of conscience, we profess the religion
which we believe to be true and pleasing to God.

We inherit it (many of us) from our persecuted fathers, for we are the
sons of martyrs in the cause of religious freedom.

Our conscience obliges us to transmit it to our children.

A brief experience of the public school system in the city of New York
convinced us that we could not discharge our conscientious duty to our off-
spring if we allowed them to be brought up under the influence of the irre-
ligious principles on which these schools are conducted, and to some of
which we have already alluded. But, besides these, there were other
grounds of distrust and danger, which soon forced on us the conclusion that
the benefits of public education were not for us. Besides the introduction
of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment, with the prevailing theory
that from these even children are to get their notions of religion, contrary
to our principles, there were, in the class-books of those schools, false (as we
believe) historical statements respecting the men and things of past times,
calculated to fill the minds of our children with errors of fact, and at the

336 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

game time to excite in them prejudice against the religion of their parents
and guardians. These passages were not considered as sectarian, inasmuch
as they had been selected as mere reading-lessons, and were not in favor of
any particular sect, but merely against'ihe Catholics. We feel it is unjust
that such passages should be taught at all in schools to the support of
which we are contributors as well as others. But that such books should
be put into the hands of our own children, and that in part at our own
expense, was, in our opinion, unjust, unnatural, and, at all events, to us in-
tolerable. Accordingly, through very great additional sacrifices, we have
been obliged to provide schools under our churches, and elsewhere, in which
to educate our children as our conscientious duty required. This we have
done to the number of some thousands for several years past, during all
which time we have been obliged to pay taxes ; and we feel it unjust and
oppressive that, whilst we educate our children as well, we contend, as they
would be at the public schools, we are denied our portion of the school
fund, simply because we at the same time endeavor to train them up in prin-
ciples of virtue and religion. This we feel to be unjust and unequal. For
we pay taxes in proportion to our numbers, as other citizens. We are sup-
posed to be from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand in the
State.

And although most of us are poor, still the poorest man amongst us is
obliged to pay taxes from the sweat of his brow, in the rent of his room or
little tenement. Is it not, then, hard and unjust that such a man cannot
have the benefit of education for his child without sacrificing the rights of
his religion and conscience ? He sends his child to a school under the pro-
tection of his Church, in which these rights will be secure. But he has to
support this school also. In Ireland he was compelled to support a Church
hostile to his religion ; and here he is compelled to support schools in
which his religion fares but little better, and to support his own school
besides.

Is this state of things, fellow-citizens, and especially Americans, is this
state of things worthy of you, worthy of your country, worthy of our just
and glorious Constitution ? Put yourselves in the poor man's place, and say
whether you would not despise him, if he did not labor by every lawful
means to emancipate himself from this bondage. He has to pay double tax-
ation for the education of his child one to the misinterpreted law of the
land, and another to his conscience. He sees his child going to school with
perhaps only the fragment of a worn-out book, thinly clad, and its bare feet
on the frozen pavement ; whereas, if he had his rights, he could improve the
clothing, he could get better books, and have his child better taught, than
it is possible in actual circumstances.

Nothing can be more false than some statements of our motives which
have been put forth against us.

It has been asserted that we seek our share of the school fund for the
support and advancement of our religion.

We beg to assure you, with respect, that we would scorn to support or
advance our religion at any other than our own expense. But we are unwill-
ing to pay taxes for the purpose of destroying our religion in the minds of
our children. This points out the sole difference between what we seek
and what some narrow-minded or misinformed journals have accused us of
seeking.

If the public schools could have been constituted on a principle which
would have secured a perfect neutrality of influence on the subject of re-
ligion, then we should have no reason to complain. But this has not been
done, and we respectfully submit that it is impossible. The cold indiffer-
ence with which it is required that all religions shall be treated in those
schools the Scriptures without note or comment the selection of passages
ns reading-lessons from Protestant and prejudiced authors, on points in

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 337

which our creed is supposed to be involved the comments of the teacher,
of which the commissioners cannot be cognizant the school libraries,
stuffed with sectarian works against us form against our religion a combi-
nation of influences prejudicial, and to whose action it would be criminal in
us to expose our children at such an age.

Such, fellow-citizens, is a statement of the reasons of our opposition to
the public schools, and of the unjust and unequal grievances of which we
complain.

You can judge of our rights by your own. You cannot be expected to
. know our religion ; many of you have, no doubt, strong prejudices against
it, which we are fain to ascribe precisely to the circumstance of your not
having had an opportunity to know it.

But, notwithstanding your prejudices and your disapproval of our faith,
we have confidence in your high principles of justice, under the sanction of
our common Constitution, which secures equal religious and civil rights to
all. Put yourselves in our situation, and say whether it is just, or equal, or
constitutional, that, whereas we are contributors to the public funds, we
shall be excluded from our share of benefit in their expenditure, unless we
submit to the arbitrary and irreligious conditions of the Common Council,
and thereby violate our rights of conscience ?

Our religion is dear to us ; for in the hearts of many of us it is connect-
ed with the history of our fathers' sufferings and our own. Education is
dear to us, for the tyrants who wished to enslave our ancestors and us, made
it criminal felony for the schoolmaster to come among us, unless he were the
avowed enemy of our creed.

We seek for nothing but what we conceive to be our rights, and which
can be granted without violating or abridging the privileges of any other
denomination or individual breathing. They may be refused, as they have
been. If they should, neither shall we yet suffer our children to receive the
anti-religious education of the public schools, nor shall we kiss the hand
that fixes a blot on the Constitution, by oppressively denying our just
claims.

What do we contend for ? Simply that our children shall be educated
apart from these influences. We contend, for liberty of conscience and freedom
of education. We hold that the laws of nature, of religion, and the very
Constitution of the country, secure to parents the right of superintending
the education of their own children.

This right we contend for, but we have hitherto been obliged to exercise
it under the unjust disadvantages of double taxation. If the State, consid-
ering our children as its own, grants money for their education, are we not
entitled to our portion of it when we perform the services which are re-
quired ?

It appears not, according to the decision of the Common Council, unless
we send our children to schools in which our religious rights are to be vio-
lated, and our offspring qualified to pass over to the thickening ranks of
infidelity. This shall not be. Much as we dread ignorance, we dread (this
much more.

If justice were done us, we could increase the number of our teachers to
a proportion corresponding with the number of children. We could im-
prove our means of teaching ; we could bring our children out of the damp
basements of our churches into pure air of better localities. In a word,
give us our just proportion of the common school fund, and if we do not
give as good an education apart from religious instruction as is given in the
public schools, to one third a larger number of children, for the same money,
we are willing to renounce our just claim. Let the proper authorities appoint
any test of improvement that shall be general, and we shall abide by it.
Neither do we desire that any children shall attend our schools except those

338 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

of our own communion although, so fur as ice are concerned, they shall be
open to all.

In a country like this, it is the interest of all to protect the guaranteed
rights of each. Should the professors of some \veak or unpopular religion
be oppressed to-day, the experiment may be repeated to-inorrow on some
other. Every successful attempt in that -way will embolden the spirit of
encroachment and diminish the power of resistance ; and, in such an event,
the monopolizers of education, after having discharged the office of public
tutor, may find it convenient to assume that of public preacher. The tran-
sition will not be found difficult or unnatural from the idea of a common
school to that of a common religion, from which, of course, in order to
make it popular, all Christian sectarianism will be carefully excluded.

" Resist the beginnings," is a wise maxim in the preservation of rights.

Should the American people ever stand by and tolerate the open and
authoritative violation of their Magna, Charta, then the republic will have
seen the end of its days of glory.

The friends of liberty throughout the civilized world will fold their
hands in grief and despair. The tyrants of the earth will point to the flag
which your fathers planted, and cry, Ha ! ha !

The nations from afar will gaze upon it, and behold with astonishment
its bright stars faded, and its stripes turned into scorpions.

The above address was unanimously adopted at a general meeting of the
Catholics of the city of New York, in the school-room of St. James' Church,
August 10th, 1840, having been submitted by

t JOHN HUGHES, Bishop of Sasileopolis, '
Coadjutor and Administrator of the
Diocese of New York.
HUGH SWEENY,
THOMAS O'CONNOR,

JAMES W. McKEON, J- Committee,

GREGORY DILLON,
J. W. WHITE,

B. O'CONNOR,

JAMES KELLY,

JOHN McLouGHLiN. J

'OP THE TRUSTEES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY TO THE ADDRESS OP
THE ROMAN CATHOLICS.

FELLOW-CITIZENS : The Roman Catholics of the city of New York, hav-
ing appealed to you against a recent decision of the Common Council reject-
ing their petition for a portion of the school fund for the support of their
church schools, and having seen fit to prefer charges of a gross and serious
nature against the present system of public instruction in the city of New
York, the trustees of the public schools feel it to be a duty which they owe
to themselves, and to the community who have, for more than thirty years,
in great measure confided to them the important subject of common educa-
tion, to reply, and disabuse the public mind.

It is proper, at the threshold, to remove an important error which per-
vades almost every part of the address. It as-sunus that the. plan of with-
holding the proceeds of the school fund and other school moneys from
religious societies, is peculiar to the city of New York, and speaks of the
late decision of the Common Council as something new ; whereas neither
the Constitution nor laws of the State contemplate any such use of the fund.

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 339

It never was so appropriated in any part of the State, except during a few
years in the city of New York. This experiment resulted, inconsiderable as
the amount then was, as it ever must result in producing jealousies and
abuses, which induced a repeal of the law nearly twenty years ago. The
recent decision of the Common Council was, therefore, only in confirmation
of a previous one, and was in strict accordance with the Constitution, the
laws, and practice of the State. And it is worthy of special remark, as evi-
dence of the soundness of the conclusion, that the vote was unanimous,
every member being present.

With such portions of the address as relate to the general question,
whether the school money shall or shall not be given to religious societies
for the support of church schools, it is not proposed to detain you long.
This question has been so conclusively settled by public opinion, and the
consequent action of our legislative bodies, that, to enter upon a discussion
of it now, might be considered an insult offered to the understanding of the
people. There is, perhaps, no one axiom connected with our political insti-
tutions which is more strongly impressed on the mind of an American than
this : " Religious establishments must not be supported by general taxa-
tion." In the primary question, the Trustees of the Public School Society
have no interest that is not common to every citizen. In all that relates to
the quality and management of the, public schools, they feel a deep interest,
and bold themselves strictly responsible to public opinion and the consti-
tuted authorities. It is proper, therefore, that the allegations contained in
the address of the Roman Catholics be either admitted or refuted. They
are of a grave and serious character, and such as should, i'f true, justly de-
prive the trustees of the confidence which has been so long reposed in them.
But they are not true, nor is there even an attempt made in the address to
sustain them by evidence. Bold assertion, vague generalizing, and mystical
reasoning, are alone relied upon. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to
follow the address through all the forms and windings it is made to assume,
in endeavoring to fasten upon the public school system of education features
the most odious to a moral and religious people. That document asserts
that, according to the late decision of the Common Council, " if you should
allow the smallest ray of religion to enter the school -room if you should
teach the children that there is an eye which sees every wicked thought,
that there is a God, a state of rewards and punishments beyond this life,
then you would forfeit all claim to the bounty of the State." It also avers
that " the public school system in the city of New York is entirely favorable
to the sectarianism of infidelity, and opposed only to that of positive Chris-
tianity ; " that " it prepares the pupil for initiation into the mysteries of
Fanny-Wrightism, or any other scheme of infidelity which may come in
their way ; " that " it is calculated to make bad and dangerous citizens ; that
no principle is inculcated that will check the lie that is rising to, the pupil's
lip, or cause confusion on their brow when they have uttered it ; " that it
" leaves the will of the pupil to riot in the fierceness of unrestrained lusts."
But we forbear. These are, indeed, high and serious charges. Happily for
the reputation of the city, and the welfare of the thousands who have re-
ceived and are receiving their education in the public schools, they are ae
unfounded as they are monstrous. Even the authors of the address shrink
from a picture of their own coloring, and declare that they do not mean to
say " that either the Legislature, Common Council, or School Commission-
ers, ever intended such perversions."

What, then, fellow-citizens, do they mean? The answer is obvious.
They claim to have discovered that the illustrious men who originated our
admirable system of common school education, the framers of our State
Constitution, and the successive legislative bodies who have enacted laws on
the subject in short, that the whole people of the State of New York, have
been, for nearly thirty years, laboring under a gross and dangerous delusion ;

340 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

and it follows, by necessary implication, that the authors of the address are
the exclusive judges of what constitutes religion, and of the kind of educa-
tion adapted to American citizens.

It is a most extraordinary feature of this address, that, with the school-
books in their hands, not a quotation is made to sustain their charges ; and
the only book objected to by name is " The Holy Scriptures without note or
comment."

Strange inconsistency ! They charge us with teaching infidelity and a
religion adverse to Christianity, and yet condemn us for using, unless accom-
panied by their own explanation, that which is the foundation of the Chris-
tian religion, and which believers and unbelievers unite in pronouncing the
most perfect code of morals ever presented to the world.

The trustees of the public schools did suppose that, by introducing the
Holy Scriptures into the schools, they would not only avoid the charge of
teaching " infidelity and Fanny- Wrightism," but that, in using the impres-
sive and sublime language of the inspired penmen, " without note or com-
ment," they would disarm the jealousy and quiet the fears of all who believe
in the Sacred Volume. Had they attempted to enforce the peculiar views
of any who deduce their religious doctrines from the Scriptures, they would
justly have incurred the charge of " sectarianism." But, says the address,
religion is not taught in any form. It is true that religion is not taught in
the sense that reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography are, nor was it
ever intended that it should form a branch of public instruction. Our Con-
stitution and laws have wisely omitted to provide for such instruction at the
public expense, and have left it where it belongs to the parent and pastor,
and religious seminaries, supported by the voluntary contributions of its
votaries.

The reading-books used in the public schools are the same as those used
in private schools of a similar grade in which children of various religious
persuasions, including those of our more wealthy fallow-citizens of tho
Uoman Catholic Church, are educated.

Many of them contain the best, most sublime, and impressive essays on
morals and religion that can be found in the English language, and are cal-
culated to impress on the young mind a belief in the existence of God, the
immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments.
They picture vice in its naked deformity, and present virtue in her most
pleasing and attractive colors.

Let the records of our criminal courts, our prisons, and the receptacles
for those who, by reason of " rioting in the fierceness of unrestrained lusts,"
have become a public, charge, be examined with reference to the effect of our
system of education on the mind and morals, as compared with any other
system, and the result will be found highly favorable to the public schools.

Let the characters of the tens of thousands who have been educated at
these schools be inquired into with a view to ascertain their value as citizens
and their love of truth, as compared with those who have received their
education by the opposite system, in this or any other country, and the
friends of the " public schools in the city of New York " have nothing to
fear from the result.

The address states that books have been found in the hands of Catholic
children " setting forth in substance, that, after all, humane feelings and
actions are about the best religion." The eminent prelate who read the
address, and said that he was concerned in drafting it, on the same occasion
read to the assembly, from one of the school-books, a story entitled " Sun-
day Morning." It is a dialogue between a father and son, and is evidently
intended to convey a twofold moral : one, that worship is a work of the
" mind and spirit," and that, when these are right, it will be acceptable in
the Divine sight, however various in form and ceremony ; and, by an acci-
dent which is made to happen to a poor man in the street, as the several

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS.

congregations are retiring from their respective places of -worship, it further
aims to inculcate the doctrine that the Christian religion, in whatever form
professed, leads to humane feelings and actions." The story occurs in the
'' American Popular Lessons," p. 124, and is certainly any thing but " secta-
rian." This is clearly the story referred to, and it assumes importance be-
cause it furnishes data whereby to estimate the charges against the public
schools, and the books used in them, of which the address is so prolific.

There are portions of the address that it is difficult, if not impossible,
to understand, or reconcile with other portions. One objection to the public
school system is, that, in excluding the " different creeds of the various de-
nominations," " the Christian religion necessarily is banished from the halla
of public education." Yet it declares that " the Roman Catholics are
opposed to the admission of sectarianism of any and every kind in the
schools that are supported by the State." The questions then occur, Will
they exclude religious instruction from the Catholic schools ? and, if so, in
what will they differ from the public schools ? If they teach ^ science with-
out religion," will it not, according to their own showing, produce "enlight-
ened villany," and be liable to the awful consequences which they predicate
of the system denounced ? If, on the other hand, they mean as they cer-
tainly must to teach the Roman Catholic religion, how can they ask " to
be supported by the State " ?

They say that "they could not discharge their conscientious duty to
their offspring, if they allowed them to be brought up under the irreligious
principles on which the public schools are conducted ; " and, while they ask
of the State the means of supporting their schools, that they may train up
their children " in principles of virtue- and religion," they assure the public
that they " would scorn to support or advance their religion at any other
than their own expense."

A solution of some of these incongruities may, perhaps, be found in the
fact that they do not class themselves among " sectarians," or " denomina-
tions of Christians," but claim to be emphatically " The Church." However
sincerely and confidently they may entertain this view of the subject, can
they, fellow-citizens, with propriety ask you to sustain the Legislature in
giving it the high sanction of legal enactment ? We think you will unite
with us in saying, No !

That portion of the address which contains a statement of the grievances
which are thought to affect the Roman Catholics in their '' civil and reli-
gious rights," remains to be considered. And the trustees approach it with
the seriousness which its importance demands.

The absence of a large portion of the Catholic children of this city from
the public schools has been cause of deep and abiding regret to the trustees.
At various times during the last ten years, efforts have been made to remove
the obstacles to their attendance. Propositions have again and again been
submitted to the Roman Catholic clergy to institute a joint examination of
the books used in the public schools, with a view to their expurgation from
every thing obnoxious to Catholic censure ; but these overtures have not, the
trustees regret to say, been met in the spirit in which they were made.
Within the present year, a committee was appointed by the Board of Trus-
tees to " examine the books in use in the public schools, including those in
the libraries, with a view to ascertain and report whether they contain any
thing derogatory to the Roman Catholic Church or any of its religious
tenets, with power to communicate with such persons of that Church as may
be authorized to meet them in reference to such alterations." An interview
was accordingly procured with a dignitary of the Catholic Church, which,
after a full and apparently a frank interchange of views, resulted in his con-
senting to receive a copy of each book used in the public schools, and an
understanding that he would communicate with the committee when he had
examined them.

342 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Pending this effort to reconcile conflicting opinions and views, and be-
fore any communication is made to the committee, the Catholic press teems
with misrepresentations of the public schools and abuse of the trustees,
which are followed up by the address now under review ; and that, too,
after positive assurances had been given that every thing should be removed
from the school-books to which they might see fit to object.

It is, therefore', evident that no expurgation nothing of a mere negative
character will satisfy the Roman Catholic clergy. If the doctrines of their
Church be not taught, nothing can be which they would not pronounce
heretical, and " adverse to Christianity." Even the Holy Scriptures are sec-
tarian and dangerous, " without note or comment : " and certainly no com-
ments would be acceptable other than those of their own Church. The
address does, indeed, declare, that " if the public schools could have been
constituted on a principle which would have secured a perfect neutrality of
influence on the subject of religion," then they would have no reason to
complain ; but in the same paragraph, they are careful to declare that such
consummation is impossible. And why impossible ? we would ask, unless
one of the parties enters upon the undertaking with feelings of exclusiteness
which forbid a compromise.

It is known that a large portion of the bishops and clergy of the Estab-
lished and other Protestant Churches, and a majority of the Roman Catho-
lic bishops of Ireland, have agreed upon a general system of education, and
a collection of extracts from the Sacred Scriptures, for the national schools
of that country. At the conference just referred to, the question was dis-
tinctly put, whether the objection of the Catholic clergy to the public
schools, so far as regards reading the Scriptures without note or comment,
would be removed by the use of these extracts in them ? The answer was,
that the dissenting bishops had appealed to the pope against the majority
of their body, and, as His Holiness had not yet settled the question, he Avas
not prepared to give an answer. The trustees very much regret that circum-
stances have placed them in a situation which renders this exposition neces-
sary. But they could not do less, and discharge their duty to themselves
and the public.

It now remains to speak of the real causes of complaint which the Ro-
man Catholics have against the public schools. The books selected for the
children have, from the first, been those used and most highly esteemed as
school-books. The passages objected to, or nearly all of them, are histori-
cal, and relate to what is generally called the Reformation. The writers
were Protestants, and took a view of the men and incidents of that excited
and eventful period directly opposed to those entertained by the members
of the Roman Catholic Church. These portions must, of course, be offen-
sive to Catholics, and they furnish just cause of complaint. The books in
all other respects are admirably adapted to the uses for which they were
compiled. The objectionable passages are not numerous, but the books are
not to be found without them. Had the overtures of the trustees for a joint
examination been acceded to, expurgated editions would long ago have been
prepared for the public schools.

The difficulty of procuring books entirely exempt from objection cannot,
perhaps, be more forcibly illustrated than by the fact that one work, con-
taining passages as liable to objection as almost any other, is now used as a
class-book even in the Catholic schools. It is the intention of the trustees,
nevertheless, to prosecute the work of expurgation until every just cause of
complaint is removed. The use of one very excellent work has been recent-
ly suspended, until a few passages, objectionable on the ground alluded to,
can be obliterated. The cooperation of the Catholic clergy is, however,
very desirable, inasmuch as it is abundantly evident that the most careful
and vigilant scrutiny on the part of the trustees may not enable them to
detect every thing that the former would exclude.

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL 'BOOKS. 343

At the same time that the- trustees feel that, in yielding to the conscien-
tious scruples of the Roman Catholics, they are bound to protect the feelings
and interests of the Protestant Churches, they are even disposed to remove
reading-matter to which they can see no objection, because it cannot be
doubted that the fertile field of English literature will still furnish an ample
supply.

A hope still lingers that every obstacle may be removed, and that their
fellow-citizens of the Roman Catholic Church may be induced to permit
their children to participate in the advantages which the public schools un-
deniably afford. For the attainment of this desirable end the trustees will
make every sacrifice compatible with justice and propriety.

They remain ready and anxious to join with the Roman Catholics in
efforts so to model the books and studies in the public schools as to obviate
existing difficulties. They think that it may be done. But if as was the
case in the Irish national schools an appeal to the pope should be neces-
sary, they are free to confess, in the language of the address, that " a perfect
neutrality of influence on the subject of religion " is indeed " impossible."

The trustees are strongly impressed with the importance of the religious
culture of the minds of youth. The public schools are open for ordinary
purposes only thirty hours in each week. Two entire days of each week
may be devoted to instruction in the peculiar religious views of those whose
inclination and sense of duty may prompt them to bestow the labor. Most
of the public school buildings are now occupied on the Sabbath by Sunday
schools. There is room for more, and the Roman Catholics have repeatedly
been told that the school buildings were as open to them as to others.

Moreover, fellow-citizens, the trustees would observe that, if a portion of
the school fund is given to the Roman Catholics for the support of their
Church schools, it will be impossible to refuse the same boon to other
Churches in short, to all who may object, on conscientious grounds, to a
general system of education. The effect would inevitably be, to destroy the
present excellent establishment, and to introduce in its place innumerable
small and inferior schools, in which, or in a part of them at least, the public
money would be frittered away in efforts to establish in the minds of the
rising generation the creeds and dogmas of each division and subdivision
of the Christian Church.

In urging their rights of conscience, the Roman Catholics appear to havo
lost sight of the important fact, that a great proportion of their fellow-citi-
zens would think their own rights of conscience violated in being taxed for
the support of Catholic schools.

That religion, as a branch of study, should be excluded from the system
of common school instruction, is the well-settled policy of the State ; and
even political men are agreed that it is scarcely of secondary importance
that it should be exempted from the blighting influence of party politics.
On both these points the trustees have, to the best of their ability, guarded
the public school system.

In selecting teachers, no regard is had to the religious profession of the
candidate. Moral character and qualifications for the important station are
alone looked to. Those now employed embrace a variety of religious per-
suasions, including six or seven of the Roman Catholic faith.

In submitting the foregoing reply to the " Address of the Roman Catho-
lics," the trustees of the public schools take occasion to say, that the duties
they have assumed are as arduous as they are responsible. About one hun-
dred of your fellow-citizens are engaged in this work, uniting in their num-
ber men of almost every religious persuasion and of every political party.
Upon a faithful and judicious discharge of their duties depends, in no small
degree, the future welfare of the city, and, to some extent, the continued
prosperity of our beloved country. More than eleven thousand visits were
made to the schools by the trustees during the past year. From these labors

344 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

neither emolument nor honor are derived. Other and higher motives have
induced the sacrifice.

Finally, the trustees invite the public, and the officers of Government, to
institute a rigid examination of the present system. If a better can be de-
vised, they will cheerfully surrender a trust which has afforded them no
reward other than a consciousness of having done their duty. "Without
such examination, they feel assured that nothing will be done to disturb its
operation.

An entire separation between Church and State is a prominent feature
of our political compact. History is pregnant with the awful consequences
of their union. Even in the arbitrary governments of Europe, slow as they
are to correct abuses, the bands that unite them are becoming weaker and
weaker ; and it is confidently believed that the people of the State of New
York are not prepared to take the first step in a retrograde course.

ROBERT C. CORNELL, President.
A. P. HALSEY, Secretary.

NEW YOHK, August 27, 1840.

September 15, 1840.

To THE EIGHT REV. DR. HUGHES :

The committee of the Trustees of the Public School Society to whom has
been assigned the duty of causing the school-books used in the public
schools to be expurgated of the passages containing sentiments obnoxious
to the Roman Catholic Church, have made some progress in their labors,
and, having learned that the agent of the Board of Trustees placed in your
hands, a short time since, at your request, copies of the various books used,
for your examination, the committee are desirous of receiving from you, at
your earliest convenience, a detailed specification of every passage by you
deemed- objectionable.

The committee are anxious to avoid the necessity of repeating the labor
and expense of expurgation ; and, being aware that many sentiments and
opinions may be by you deemed exceptionable that would not strike the eye
of a Protestant, however sincerely desirous of meeting your views, they feel
the more in haste to be possessed of the result of your labors.

It is a source of regret to the committee that the Very Rev. Dr. Power,
who was furnished, some months since, with copies of the books, has not
communicated the result of his examination to them ; and the committee
will take the liberty of suggesting that your own labor may be diminished,
if you should see fit to avail yourself of whatever progress he may have
made in the work.

On behalf of the committee, very respectfully,

JOSEPH B. COLLINS.

NEW YOEK, September 15, 1840.

To JOSEPH B. COLLINS, Esq. :

DEAR SIR : I have just received your letter of this date, in relation to
the expurgation of the books used in the public schools. I am at a loss to
account for the supposition, on the part of your committee, that I was
engaged in the special examination of objectionable passages, with a view
to assist the committee in their laudable undertaking. This I should be
most willing, however, to do, if my many and incessant duties left me suffi-
cient leisure for the purpose.

I perceive, by the " Reply " of the trustees, that they are directing their
attention to some of the principal passages. One of them, unless my memory
fails me, I designated to one of your board more than eighteen months ago

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 345

viz., the article about Huss, in " Putnam'3 Sequel ; " and it has remained
untouched up to this time.

With regard to the books which your agent had the kindness to send, I
requested them through Dr. Hogan, without mentioning for what object,
and never dreaming that the fact would have produced the impression that
I was about to undertake the labor of a critical investigation of their con-
tents. The committee, indeed, profess their willingness to reject whatever I
shall find objectionable. But do they not promise too much ? Now, the
fact is, that I wished to have the books in order to see on what ground the
trustees of the public schools could, consistently with facts, state, as they
did before the Board of Assistant Aldermen, that the Catholics had no rea-
son to object to the system so far as " relates to books or exercises of any
kind in the public schools." This I should perhaps have stated, but the
omission was purely accidental.

I have the honor to be, with great respect,

t JOHN HUGHES, Bishop, &c.

Resolved, That it be referred to the Committee on Arts and Sciences, &c.,
to confer with the Commissioners of the Public Schools, and ascertain from
them, and report to this board, whether any books of a sectarian character,
or any books that contain any thing* to the prejudice of any particular reli-
gious sect, either as to faith or church discipline, are permitted in the public
schools.

NEW YOEK, May 25, 1840.

DEAR SIR : By direction of the Committee on Arts and Sciences and
Schools, of the Board of Aldermen, I have the honor to enclose to you (as
above) a copy of a resolution offered by Alderman Chamberlain, and adopted
at the last meeting of the Board, and to request that you will, at your earli-
est convenience, communicate to me, as chairman of the committee, a list of
the books used in the schools established by the Public School Society.
Very respectfully yours,

DAVID GRAHAM, JR.,
Chairman of the Committee on Arts a?ul Sciences and Schools, of the Board of

Aldermen.
B. C. CORNELL,

President of Public School Society.

To DAVID GRAHAM, JR., Esq., Chairman of the Committee on Arts and Sci-
ences and Schools, of the Board of Aldermen. .

The communication addressed to R. C. Cornell, President of the Public
School Society of New York, under date of May 25, was laid before the
Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees at its monthly meeting held
on June 4, and then referred to a committee appointed at a previous meet-
ing on the very subject referred to by you. This is mentioned in order to
account for what might otherwise appear to be an unnecessary delay in re-
sponding to your note. I would premise that it has ever been the intention
of the trustees of the public schools to divest them, as far as practicable, of
every thing of a sectarian* character ; and we are not aware that any of the
books used in them have been deemed objectionable by any Church or soci-
ety of religious purposes except the Roman Catholics.

It has been known and lamented for years that the clergy of this Church
have discouraged the attendance of the children of its members at the pub-

346 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETT.

lie schools ; and in 1834, a committee was appointed to wait on Bishop
Dubois for the purpose of removing any reasonable objection he might have
to the course of studies pursued and the books used in the public schools,
and to assure him of the wish of the trustees to alter or discontinue the use
of any book against which a reasonable objection may lay, and at the same
time to invite the cooperation in the management of the public schools of
any lay member of the Catholic Church who feels an interest in the literary
and moral culture of youth. This committee made a full report, embracing
all the points insisted on by the bishop as necessary to induce him to recom-
mend the attendance of Catholic children at the public schools. Your com-
mittee will be furnished with a copy of this report, if desired ; but it may
be sufficient to remark, that, to comply with all his propositions, would
have been to divest the schools of their neutral character, and make them
such as would necessarily have excluded the children of Protestant parents.
To this, of course, the trustees could not assent.

Desirous of doing all they could to induce the attendance of Catholic
children, a teacher professing that faith was employed as principal of school
No. 5, which is located near the cathedral in Mott street. This experiment
did not, however, answer the expectations of the trustees. The subject was
again brought before the board by a verbal communication from the Rev.
Mr. Varela, through one of the trustees. Whereupon the following proceed-
ings were had, as appears by the minutes, from which the following are
extracts :

"The Vice-President stated that the Rev. Mr. Varela, of the Roman
Catholic Church, had sent a request to be furnished with a set of the read-
ing-books used in the public schools ; whereupon it was

" Resolved, That the secretary be requested to send a copy of eacli of said
books to Mr. Varela, for his inspection. It was also unanimously Resolved,
That this board continues to entertain an anxious desire to remove every
objection which the members of the Catholic Church may have to the books
used, or the studies pursued, in the public schools, and that the secretary be
requested to renew the assurance given on a former occasion, that any sug-
gestion or remarks which the Rev. Mr. Varela may deem it right to make on
his own behalf, and that of his associates, after said book's have been ex-
amined, shall receive the most serious and respectful consideration of this
board.

"Resolved, further, That a copy of these resolutions be sent with the
books referred to."

After a full opportunity to examine the books, a letter, of which the
following is a copy, was received from the above-named gentleman :

NEW YORK, April 8, 1840.

DEAR SIR : I received* the books you had the kindness of sending to me,
according to a resolution of the Board of Trustees of the Common Schools,
in consequence of an information given by one of them as to my wish of
examining said books. I thank the Board of Trustees for this mark of good
feeling, and, in order to comply with their request, I will express my opinion
on the subject.

The "Scripture Lessons" present, in the very title-page, an attack
against the Catholic Church ; for it is expressly stated that they are without
note or comment, so as to call the attention of a child, and to tell him, " Your
Church is wrong in giving the Bible always with notes ; disregard her, and
read the Scriptures without any note or comment, and find out a religion for
yourself." This is to establish at once the Protestant fundamental principle,
and to make the public schools completely sectarian.

In the Geography (p. 143), it is said " that the Catholic clergy, who have

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 347

vast influence, oppose the diffusion of general knowledge ; " and in the very
next page it is said that " Catholics pay very great reverence to the priests."
It is very easy to perceive that a child will think very little of such a rever-
ence, and lose every regard for such a ministry.

There are also, in the description of Italy, some passages which evidently
tend to diminish the consideration that a Catholic child has for the Catholic
Church. I also noticed in the reading-book the description of the character
of Luther, with some expressions which, no doubt, will please the Protes-
tants, but imply an attack against the Catholic Church. By making these
few observations, I do not allude to the question* as to the petition made by
the Catholics to obtain a part of the school funds, but I merely respond to
the kindness of the Board of Trustees in sending me the books for examina-
tion.

With great respect, your obedient

FELIX VARELA.
To A. P. HALSET, Secretary, &c.

Your committee will be enabled to estimate the importance he attempts
to attach to the notes on the title-page of the " Scripture Lessons." We
can only say that the trustees had not the most remote intention of convey-
ing the ideas or suggestions intimated in Dr. Varela's letter.

The next objectionable passage occurs in Maltebrun's Geography, and it
is certainly obnoxious to the charge made, as there is no way of removing
this passage effectually, except by printing an edition expressly for the pub-
lic schools ; and as this Geography is, in all other respects, much preferable
to any other extant, the trustees have permitted the use of the present edi-
tion without having, in several years, thought of applying a remedy. By
way of apology, or at least in extenuation of this neglect, it may not be im-
proper to state that the same book, with the passage objected to, is now
used in the Catholic schools in this city. As the remaining objections re-
ferred to by Dr. Varela are too general and indefinite to admit of a specific
note here, we will proceed to state that the whole subject was again brought
before the Board of Trustees at a meeting held last month, when the follow-
ing proceedings took place :

" The. secretary read a letter from the Rev. Dr. Varela, in reply to a com-
munication made to him by order of the board, with a set of the books
used in the schools, whereupon it was

" Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed, to examine the books
in use in the public schools, including those in the libraries, with a view to
ascertain and report whether they contain any thing derogatory to the Ro-
man Catholic Church or any of its religious tenets, with power to communi-
cate with such persons of that Cburch as may be authorized to meet them
in reference to such alterations.

" Messrs. J. S. Rogers, Collins, Mott, J. F. Depeyster, and Hogan, were
appointed as the committee."

At an early day after its appointment, the committee addressed a note
to Dr. Power, the Vicar-General, requesting an interview with himself and
others, for the purpose of discussing the subject referred to the committee.
Such an interview took place on the 14th of last month, and resulted, after
an open and frank interchange of views, in a request on the part of Dr.
Power, that he might be furnished with a copy of each book used in the
public schools. This request was promptly complied with.

The books are now undergoing the careful review of a well-qualified
member of the committee ; but inasmuch as there are doubtless passages
which might not appear objectionable to the committee, but which the jeal-
ous watchfulness and the religious duty of the Vicar-General would alike

348 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

prompt him to detect, and as the committee is sincerely desirous of remov-
ing every obstacle to the attendance of Catholic children at the public
schools, it was thought best to omit reporting to the board till ample time
is afforded the objectors for investigation.

That the committee of the Common Council may be placed in possession
of every fact and circumstance connected with this deeply interesting sub-
ject, it may be proper to add that, among the works passed upon and sanc-
tioned by the Book Committee, the Executive Committee, and the Board of
Trustees, as being suitable for the school library, was a collection of enter-
taining and highly moral stories entitled, " Temperance Tales." These tales
proved so popular, that the publishers were induced to issue volume after
volume ; and the gentleman charged with the duty of procuring for the
library all books ordered by the board, supposing that he was authorized to
purchase the volumes issued subsequently to the date of the order, intro-
duced into the library one volume which was afterward found to contain a
story that is deemed objectionable by the Catholic clergy. This volume has
been removed from all the school libraries.

In conclusion, the committee of the Board of Trustees take occasion to
renew the assurance, that every thing in their power shall be done to divest
the public schools of a sectarian character or bias.

The committee accompanied their report to the Board of
Trustees with a specification of some of the passages which they
deemed exceptionable. They are as follows :

New York Reader. Page 205, erase last paragraph.

English Reader. Page 51, strike out paragraph, " the Queen's bigoted
zeal," &c., to " eternal -welfare." Page 152, erase, " the most credulous monk'
in a Portuguese convent."

Sequel, Murray*s. The whole article, " Life of Luther." Pages 84 and
85, paste up " Execution of Cranmer." Page 279, erase, " and anon in pen-
ance, planning sins anew."

Putnam's Sequel. Erase the article, " John Huss."

Maltebruri's Geography. Page 111, erase first five lines. Page 123, erase
last paragraph, chapter 134. Page 140, erase five lines from the top, " and
there is no doubt the lower classes of Ireland are so." Page 145, erase,
" inflict the most horrible tortures." Page 148, erase, " Italy to be submit-
ted to the Catholic bishop." Page 155, erase, " from their religion," down
to " ceremonies."

Halt's History of the United States. Page 11, erase, " from the persecu-
tion of the Catholics," section 22.

Scripture Lessons. Erase, in the title-page, the words, " without note or
comment."

The revision and expurgation of the books was continued
under the direction of the board, and all the objectionable pas-
sages were either stamped with ink from a wooden block, or the
leaves pasted together or removed, or a volume discontinued as
a text-book or library-book. This course, however, on the part
of the trustees, was not satisfactory, and did not in the least

EXPURGATION OF SCHOOL BOOKS. 349

abate the demands of the applicants for a separate provision to
be made for their schools from the school fund, and the contro-
versy subsequently became more animated than ever before.
The mutilated volumes were gradually worn out and rendered
unfit for use, and were replaced by new books, which were per-
mitted to go into the schools without change or expurgation, and
the discussion in reference to the text-books subsided. The
action of the trustees was understood by a large portion of the
public to have been in obedience to the direction and demands
of the Catholic clergy ; and at the meeting of the Society held
November 6, 1840, the following declaration was submitted for
adoption by the board :

In consequence of unfounded rumors prevalent in the city, the Trustees
of the New York Public School Society deem it proper to state that {.he
obliterations in the books used in the public schools have been made under
their direction, from an earnest desire to remove, as far as possible, all obsta-
cles to the cooperation of every portion of the community with them in the
business of public education. They further deem it proper to state, that
this matter of expurgation has been long a subject of consideration with
them, and has only been delayed for the reasons set forth in their address
now before the public.

After some discussion had upon this declaration, it was laid
upon the table, where it was allowed to remain, and the agita-
tion ceased.

350 PHE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SCHOOL CONTROVERSY OF 1841-1842.

Meeting of Roman Catholics at Washington Hall Addresses by Rev. Dr. Power and
Bishop Hughes Central Committee Appointed Ward Meetings and Committees
Petitions to the Legislature Hon. John L. O'Sullivan's Bill Action of the
House of Assembly Action in the Senate Governor Seward's Message Re-
monstrance from the City of New York Hon. John C. Spencer Report on the
School Question The Committee on Literature Speech of Hiram Ketchum
Memorial and Remonstrance of the Public School Society Proceedings in the
Senate Speech of Bishop Hughes Public Meetings of Catholics Election of
Members of the Legislature Roman Catholic Ticket Nominated. NOTE. The
Journal of Commerces-Review by one of its Contributors Roman Catholic Ex-
communications Bishop Hughes Tristam Shandy.

THE proceedings before the Common Council relative to the
claims of the Roman Catholics, were terminated by the vote
adopting the report of the committee, submitted on the llth of
January, 1841. The result, although foreseen, \vas so decided
in its character only one member of the board having voted in
the negative that it gave little ground for expectation that the
grievances complained of would be removed by that body. The
committee of the Catholics, to whom the general care of the
whole matter had been entrusted, accordingly called a meeting
at Washington Hall, in Broadway, comer of Reade street, to be
lield on the llth of February.

A crowded auditory assembled on the occasion, when THOMAS
O'CONNOR, Esq., was called to the chair, Francis Cooper and
Gregory Dillon were named as vice-presidents, and B. O'Con-
nor and Edward Shortill, secretaries.

Rev. Dr. Power made the opening address, followed by
Bishop Hughes, at the close of which, on motion of Dr. Hogan,
it was

Resohed, That it is expedient to form a Central Committee, to be called
" The Central Executive Committee on Common Schools."

James "W. McKeon, Hugh Sweeney, M.D., Robert Hogan,

ROMAN CATHOLIC COMMITTEE ORGANIZED, 351

M.D., James W. White, and Thomas O'Connor, were named as
the committee.

On motion of James W. White, it was

Itesolved, That it is expedient to call meetings in each ward, for the pur-
pose of giving public expression to our sentiments in disapprobation of the
public school system as at present existing in New York.

On motion, of T. L. Danaher, it was

Resolved, That the ward meetings be respectfully recommended to ap-
point committees in their respective wards, for the purpose of obtaining sig-
natures to a memorial to the honorable the Legislature, praying for such
modification in the school system of this city and county as will afford to
persons of every denomination, without violation of their conscience, the
advantages of the common school education provided by the bounty of the
State.

On motion of Hugh Sweeney, M.D., it was

Resolved, That a committee of two shall be appointed by the meetings
in each ward, whose duty it shall be to communicate with and to carry into
effect in their respective wards the measures which may be recommended by
the Central Executive Committee.

The resolutions were approved and adopted with great en-
thusiasm ; and a resolution tendering the thanks of the meeting
to Alderman Peritz, for his " independent and honorable conduct
in voting against the report of the committee," was received
with the most lively, and earnest demonstrations of applause. -

The movement on the part of the Boman Catholics was thus
fully organized, and the committees proceeded with great zeal
and unanimity in the discharge of their several duties. Meet-
ings were held, petitions were circulated, and signatures obtained
to the number of about seven thousand. Mr. Joseph O'Connor,
on behalf of the committee, proceeded to Albany, and placed
the memorial in the hands of Hon. Gulian C. Verplanck, a
member of the New York delegation in the Senate, who prom-
ised to present it to that body at the earliest day. Subsequent
conferences between influential parties led to the adoption of an-
other course, as the presentation of the memorials from Roman
Catholics as a religious body was deemed inexpedient. They
were returned to the committees of the Catholics, amended, and
again placed in the hands of the Senator in the form of petitions
from " CITIZENS OF NEW YORK."

352 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

On Saturday, March 13, Mr. John L. O'Sullivan, a member
of the Assembly from New York, gave notice that he would, on
some future day, ask leave to introduce a bill, entitled, " An Act
to Extend and Improve the Benefits of Common School Educa-
tion in the City of New York." On Monday following, he
asked and obtained leave to introduce his bill, which was read
the first time, and, by unanimous consent, was read the second
time. Mr. O'Sullivan then moved that the bill be referred to a
select committee, consisting of the members of the House repre-
senting the city of New York. Mr. Bryson moved that it be
referred to the Standing Committee on Colleges, Academies, and
Schools ; and, debate arising on the several motions, the subject
was laid on the table under the rules.

On Saturday, the 20th of March, Mr. O'Sullivan called up
the question, on the motion of Mr. Bryson, to refer his bill* to
the Committee on Colleges, &c., upon which some discussion
was had, when the Speaker put the question whether the House
would agree with the motion of Mr. Bryson, and it was decided
in the affirmative, and the bill was accordingly referred. The
committee consisted of "William Duer, of Oswego, William B.
Maclay, of New York, Levi Hubbell, of Tompkins, Isaac N.
Stoddard, of Genesee, and Edmund Eltnendorf, of Dutchess.

On Tuesday, March 30, Mr. O'Sullivan offered a resolution
that the Standing Committee on Colleges, Academies, and
Schools be discharged from the consideration of the bill relative
to common schools in the city of New York, and that the same
be referred to a select committee. Mr. Shaw moved to amend
the resolution, by adding, at the end, the words, " consisting of
the delegation attending this House from the city and county of
New York." Mr. Culver moved to amend the amendment, by
striking out all after the words " consisting of," and inserting
the words, " the mover of this resolution." Mr. W. F. Brod-
head moved to lay the whole question oh the table, which was
lost, and a long debate ensued, pending which the House ad-
journed.

On Thursday, April 1, Mr. O'Sulliyan called up his resolu-
tion of reference to a select committee. The resolution was
read, together with the amendments, when Mr. Culver withdrew
his amendment, and the Speaker put the question on the amend-
ment of Mr. Shaw, to refer to the members of the New York

GOVERNOR SEWARD'S MESSAGE. 353

delegation, which was agreed to' by the House. The gentlemen
comprising the delegation at that session were the following :
William B. Maclay, Paul Grout, Norman Hickok, Edmund J.
Porter, Cornelius H. Bryson, Solomon Townsend, George Weir,
David E. Floyd Jones, Absalom A. Miller, Conrad Swackhamer,
William McMurray, Abraham B. Davis, and John L. O'Sullivan.

On the 21st of the same month, the remonstrance of citi-
zens of New York, against diverting the school fund from its
legitimate objects'was received from the Senate, and referred to
the same committee. The House adjourned without hearing any
report on the matter, and the narrative of proceedings in the Sen-
ate will not be interrupted by the action of the Assembly.

After the organization of the Senate, the various topics of
the message of Hon. William H. Seward, the Governor, were
referred to appropriate committees, and so much as related to
colleges, academies, and common schools, the school fund, the
literature fund, and the United States deposit fund, was referred
to the Committee on Literature. This committee was composed
of Erastus Root, of Delaware, John Hunter y of Westchester,
and Gulian C. Verplanck, of New York.

Mr. Seward's recommendations are contained in the follow-
ing extract from his message :

Previous to 1802, no foreigner could be naturalized until after a resi-
dence of fourteen years. No one has better understood the tendency of
republican institutions, or entertained more just views of the principles upon
which they were founded, than the illustrious citizen who in that year
recommended to Congress an amelioration of the naturalization laws. " Con-
sidering the ordinary chances of human life," he observed, "a denial of
citizenship under a residence of fourteen years is a denial to a great portion
of those who ask it, and controls a policy pursued from their first settle-
ment by many of the States, and still believed to be of consequence to their
prosperity. And shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that
hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers
arriving in this land ? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on the
globe ? The Constitution has wisely provided that, for admission to certain
offices of trust, a residence shall be required sufficient to develop character
and design. But might not the general character and capabilities of a citi-
zen be safely communicated to every one manifesting a Txmd-fide purpose of
embarking his life and fortunes with us ? " In concurrence with these sug-
gestions, Congress passed the act now in force concerning naturalization.
Probably half a million of persons have, since that time, complied with its
provisions, and secured to themselves the rights of citizenship ; and there
23

354: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

cannot now be less thau half that number of electors of foreign birth in the
United States. This class is largely increasing. The number of emigrants
arriving at the port of New York, iu 1828, was about twenty thousand.
The number in 1840 was sixty-one thousand. Although the liberal and
enlightened opinions of Jefferson have been the settled policy of the coun-
try for almost forty years, yet an issue is still maintained upon those opin-
ions between a portion of our fellow-citizens and those to whom the law,
passed in conformity with those sentiments, has given a full participation in
our political rights and privileges. Hence arise mutual jealousies. The con-
sequences of these jealousies are seen in the separation and alienation of
classes having common interests; in the misfortunes of the weaker, in appre-
hensions of insecurity on the part of the stronger, and in the demoralization
of portions of both ; in frauds at elections, and fraudulent proceedings
under the naturalization laws. The policy and measures which I have
recommended have heretofore had for their object the elevation of the social
condition of emigrants, and the assimilation of their habits, principles, and
opinions with our own.

Not much, however, can be accomplished by legislation to affect the rela-
tions between masses of adult citizens, and the change desired in this respect
must be left chiefly to time and the operation of our institutions. But it is
not so in regard to the rising generation. The census of the United States
Js said to show that there are forty-three thousand eight hundred and sev-
enty-one white persons in this State who have passed the age of twenty-one
jears without having learned to read and write. Let us make any allow-
ance for any portion of adult foreigners, and there yet remains a large num-
ber of uneducated native citizens. The number of children now growing
up in the same manner does not fall short of thirty thousand. These are
the offspring, not of prosperity and affluence, but of poverty and misfor-
tune. Knowing, from the records of our penitentiaries, that, of this neg-
lected class, those are often most fortunate who, from precocity in vice, secure
admission into the House of Refuge or the State Prison, through the ways
of crime ; and knowing, too, that almost every application for pardon is
urged on the ground of neglected education, I have felt it an imperative
duty to appeal to the Legislature to render our system of education as com-
prehensive as the purposes for which it was established. Of one thousand
and fifty-eight children in the Almshouse of the city of New York, one
sixth part is of American parentage, one sixth part was born abroad, and
the remainder are the children of foreigners ; and of two hundred and fifty
children in the House of Refuge, more than one half were either born
abroad, or of foreign parents. The poverty, misfortunes, accidents, and
prejudices to which foreigners are exposed, satisfactorily account, to my
mind, for the undue proportion of their children in the neglected class to
which the attention of the Legislature was called. Although the excellent
public schools in the city of New York are open to all, and .have -long
afforded gratuitous instruction to all who seek it, nevertheless the evil there
exists in its greatest magnitude. Obviously, therefore, something more is
necessary to remove it than has yet been done, unless we assume that society

GOVERNOR SEWAKD'S MESSAGE. 355

consents to leave it without a remedy. These circumstances led me to the
reflection, that possibly a portion of those whom other efforts had failed to
reach might be brought within the nurture of the schools, by employing for
their instruction teachers who, from their relations toward them, might be
expected to secure their confidence. When the census of 1850 shall be
taken, I trust it will show that, within the borders of the State of New
York, there is no child of sufficient years who is. unable to read and write.
I am sure it will then be acknowledged, that when, ten years before, there
were thirty thousand children growing up in ignorance and vice, a sugges-
tion to seek them wherever found, and win them to the ways of knowledge
and virtue by persuasion, sympathy, and kindness, was prompted by a sin-
cere desire for the common good. I have no pride of opinion concerning
the manner in which the education of those whom I have brought to your
notice shall be secured, although I might derive satisfaction from the reflec-
tion that, amid abundant misrepresentations of the method suggested, no
one has contended that it would be ineffectual, nor has any other plan been
proposed. I observe, on the contrary, with deep regret, that the evil remains
as before : and the question recurs, not merely how, or by whom, shall in-
struction be given, but whether it shall be given at all, or be altogether
withheld. Others may be content with a system that erects free schools and
offers gratuitous instruction ; but I trust I shall be allowed to entertain the
opinion, that no system is perfect which does not accomplish what it pro-
poses ; that our system, therefore, is deficient in comprehensiveness in the
exact proportion of the children that it leaves uneducated ; that knowledge,
however acquired, is better than ignorance ; and that neither error, acci-
dent, nor prejudice, ought to be permitted to deprive the State of the edu-
cation of her citizens. Cherishing such opinions, I could not enjoy the con-
sciousness of having discharged my duty, if any effort had been omitted
which was calculated to bring within the schools all who are destined to
exercise the rights of citizenship ; nor shall I feel that the system is perfect,
or liberty safe, until that object be accomplished. Not personally concerned
about such misapprehensions as have arisen, but desirous to remove every
obstacle to the accomplishment of so important an object, I verily declare
that I seek the education of those whom I have brought before -you, not to
perpetuate any prejudices or distinctions which deprive them of instruction,
but in disregard of all such distinctions and prejudices. I solicit their edu-
cation less from sympathy, than because the welfare of the State demands it,
and cannot dispense with it. As native citizens, they are born to the right
of suffrage. I ask that they may at least be taught to read and write ; and,
in asking this, I require no more for them than I have diligently endeavored
to secure to the inmates of our penitentiaries, who have forfeited that inesti-
mable franchise by crime, and also to an unfortunate race which, having
been plunged by us into degradation and ignorance, has been excluded from
the franchise by an arbitrary property qualification incongruous with all our
institutions. I have not recommended, nor do I seek, the education of any
class in foreign languages or in particular creeds or faiths ; but fully believ-
ing, with the author of the Declaration of Independence, that even error

356 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

. X

may be safely tolerated where reason is left free to combat it, and therefore
indulging no apprehensions from the influence of any language or creed
among an enlightened people. I desire the education of the entire rising
generation in all the elements of knowledge we possess, and in that tongue
which is the common language of our countrymen. To me, the most inter-
esting of all our republican institutions is the common school. I seek not
to disturb in any manner its peaceful and assiduous exercises, and, least of
all, with contentions about faith or forms. I desire the education of all the
children in the commonwealth in morality and virtue, leaving matters of
conscience where, according to the principles of civil and religions liberty
established by our Constitution and laws, they rightfully belong.

On February 24th, the President laid before the Senate a
remonstrance from citizens of New York, against any diversion
of the school fund from its legitimate objects, which was read,
and laid on the table.

Petitions were put in circulation among the citizens of New
York, by those favorable to an alteration of the school system,
and, a respectable number of signatures having been obtained,
the memorial was forwarded to Mr. Yerplanck, who presented
the same to the Senate, on the 29th of March. The paper was
read, and referred to the Secretary of State, Hon. John C. Spen-
cer, who was also at that time, by law, Superintendent of Com-
mon Schools.

The Secretary gave immediate attention to the important
subject committed to his care, and, on April 26th, his report was
laid before the Senate, read, and referred to the Committee on
Literature. The following is the report :

In SEXATE, April 26, 1WL
REPORT

Of tlie Secretary of State upon Memorial* from ike City of New York, respect-
ing the Distribution of the Common School Moneys in that City, referred to
Mm "by the Senate.

To the Honorable the Senate :

The Secretary of State, to whom have been referred by the Senate, during
the last and present sessions, numerous petitions on the subject of the appli-
cation of that portion of the public school moneys which is distributed in
the city of New York, RESPECTFULLY REPORTS :

The memorials presented at the present session represent, that the legis-
lative enactments on the subject of public instruction in the city of New
York require a fundamental alteration to bring the benefits of common
school education within the reach of all classes of the population ; that the
original intent of these enactments was to enable every school, which should

MR. SPENCER'S REPORT. 357

comply with the law, to share in the common school fund ; that this design
has been defeated by the construction put upon the statutes by the Common
Council of the city, in designating the Public School Society to receive
nearly the whole amount of the fund belonging to the city ; that this Soci-
ety, being a corporation, has acquired the entire control of the system of
public education ; that the taxpayers, who contribute to the fund, have no
voice in the selection of those who administer the system, or control over
the application of the public moneys. They deprecate the influence of such
a corporation, and consider it dangerous and detrimental to the public inter-
ests, while it is wanting in responsibility to the people. They complain also
of injustice to those whose conscientious scruples they allege have been dis-
regarded in the system of instruction adopted by that Society. They repre-
sent that there are other schools in the city equally entitled to partake in
the bounty of the State, but which, with nearly eight thousand children,
are excluded from any of its benefits under the present system. They pray
that every school established by the taxable inhabitants of the city may be
entitled to a distributive share of the public school moneys ; and that the
persons to control and administer the system of public instruction in the
city may be appointed by the electors and taxable inhabitants.

At the last session, memorials of a similar character from a large number
of Roman Catholic citizens of New York were referred to the undersigned,
upon which he was unable, during that session, to report. Although these
citizens have the same equal and common rights with all other citizens to
submit their grievances to the Legislature and ask for redress, yet the cir-
cumstance of presenting themselves in the character of a religions denomi-
nation is, in itself, unfavorable to that impartial consideration of the subject
which its importance demands. The hazard is incurred of giving to a ques-
tion broad as the whole territory of our State, and comprehending all its
inhabitants, an aspect of peculiarity, as if it concerned only those who pre-
sented their complaints. But great injustice would be done to the subject
by this mode of considering it. It embraces interests vital to the well-being
of the whole community ; it involves the destiny of thousands upon thou-
sands of the children of the republic, who are hereafter to take their share
in the management of its affairs, and are to become good citizens or miser-
able outcasts rwho are to sustain the laws and assist in the preservation of
peace and good order, or to fill our dungeons and prisons, and occupy our
scaffolds. In the contemplation of such results, the denominations and par-
ties into which society is divided cannot be regarded, except so far as a just
and well-ordered government is bound to protect, equally and impartially,
the civil and political rights of all.

It is essential to the proper consideration of the subject, to understand
the history of the legislation that has been had in reference to it ; and par-
ticularly in relation to the Public School Society of the city of New York.

The first law relating to that portion of the school moneys apportioned
to and raised in the city of New York, was passed in 1813, and will be
found in the first .volume of the Revised Laws of that year, at p. 267. It
directed those moneys to be distributed " to the Trustees of the Free-School

358 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Society, the Orphan Asylum Society, the Economical School,, the African
Free School, and the trustees of such incorporated religious societies in said
city as now support, or hereafter shall establish, charity schools within the
said city, who may apply for the same."

The act directed that the sum thus distributed should be applied to the
payment of the wages of the teachers, and to no other purpose whatever.
As these were all charity schools, it is obvious that the Legislature intended
that the school moneys apportioned to the city, as well as those raised by
tax, should be consecrated to the education exclusively of the indigent.
Under this act, apportionments were annually made to the schools enume-
rated, and to those established by some eight or ten of the religious denomi-
nations, until the year 1824. By chapter 276 of the Session Laws of that
year, the above-mentioned act was repealed, and the Common Council of the
city was authorized to designate " the societies or schools which should be
entitled to receive a share of the school moneys, and prescribe the rules and
restrictions under which such moneys shall be received by such societies or
schools respectively." Pursuant to this act, the Common Council have
designated the schools of the Public School Society, and six or eight other
schools, to which all the public moneys have, since 1826, been distributed,
with some variations in different years as to the other schools. From the
annual reports and other documents, a statement has been compiled, from
which it appears that more than one million dollars has been paid to the
trustees of the Society, under its different names, since 1813, out of the
public moneys appropriated by the State, and raised by tax on the city for
school purposes, and that $125,248.57, have been paid to the other schools
before mentioned.

The Public School Society was originally incorporated in 1805, by chap-
ter 108 of the laws of that session, which is entitled " An Act to Incorporate
the Society instituted in the City of New York, for the establishment of a
free school for the education of poor children who do not belong to, orxare
not provided for by, any religious society." In 1808, its name was changed
to "The Free-School Society of New York," and its powers were extended
" to all children who are the proper subject of a gratuitous education." By
chapter 25 of the laws of 1826, its name was changed to " The Public
School Society of New York," and the trustees were authorized to provide
for the education of all children in the city of New York not otherwise pro-
vided for, " whether such children be or be not the proper subjects of gra-
tuitous education ; " and to require from those attending the schools a
moderate compensation ; but no child to be refused admission on account
of inability to pay.

MR. SPENCER'S REPORT. 359

reserved by the Legislature to repeal or modify its charter. It consists of
members who have contributed to the funds of the Society ; and, according
to the provisions of the last act, the payment of ten dollars constitutes the
contributor a member for life. The members annually choose fifty trustees,
who may add to their number fifty more.

In the last report of the Commissioners for School Money in the City
and County of New York, dated in July, 1840, it is stated that " the num-
ber of schools subject to the visitation of the commissioners has increased to
one hundred and fifteen ; of these, ninety-eight are under the direction of
the Public School Society." The same report states that the average num-
ber of scholars on the registers of these schools during the year was 22,955,
and the average number of scholars attending them during the year was
13,189. This great dissparity between the number registered and the num-
ber attending is accounted for by the absences and irregular attendance of
the pupils.

Although the undersigned cannot find any provision by which the
schools of the Society are placed under the visitation and supervision of the
Superintendent of Common Schools, yet he would have undertaken a per-
sonal examination of them, if the pressure of his public duties and other
circumstances beyond his control, would have permitted.

Several gentlemen of the city, eminently qualified, were, however, select-
ed for that purpose ; and they have diligently conducted a laborious inquiry,
and submitted to the undersigned a mass of valuable information. The
results of these examinations show very satisfactorily that commodious
houses and good teachers are provided by the Public School Society ; that
the system of instruction is well devised and faithfully executed ; that an
efficient plan of visitation and inspection is prescribed by the trustees ; and,
although he has not positive information on the subject, he has no reason to
doubt that such plan is carried into practical execution. Certain it is, that
the trustees of the Society have exhibited the most praiseworthy zeal and
devotion in the discharge of the great trust devolved on them ; and many,
if not all of them, have spared no exertions to bring into their schools the
destitute children of the city.

The undersigned has supposed that, for the purpose of this report, this
general view of the condition of the schools of that Society would be more
useful than to encumber it with the large amount and great variety of de-
tails which have been collected. To the gentlemen who visited the schools
and obtained the desired information, and to the officers of the Society,
who have cheerfully rendered every assistance, he would take this occasion
to express the obligations of the public, and his own.

Notwithstanding these favorable results of the efforts of the Public
School Society, the memorials referred to the undersigned complain of the
operation of a system which, in fact, devolves upon any private corporation
the discharge of one of the most important functions of the government,
without that responsibility to the people which is provided in all other
cases. They allege that, in its administration, the conscientious opinions
and feelings of large classes of citizens are disregarded ; that other schools,

360 TUB PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

maintained for the same objects and accomplishing the same benevolent
results, are arbitrarily excluded from all participation in a common fund
collected by the joint contributions of all ; and that a fearfully large portion
of the indigent children are not reached, or in any way benefited by the
system of public education which now prevails. These are objections of the
most weighty character, and cannot be overlooked by those whose duty and
inclination alike prompt them to regard the greatest good of the greatest
number. The merits of the Public School Society, the devotion and energy
of its trustees, and the success of its schools, cannot and ought not to pre-
vent an investigation to ascertain whether it is necessarily limited in its
operation ; whether it accomplishes the main purposes of its organization ;
or whether its continuance violates essential and fundamental principles, and
thus presents a perpetual source of irritation and complaint. The question
to be determined is far more broad and comprehensive than the merits of
uny particular society. It involves the inquiry whether the intentions of
the Legislature have been fulfilled, to furnish the means of education " to
all those who are destined to exercise the rights of citizenship."

There are numerous other schools in the city of New York, founded by
voluntary associations, in which many thousands of the children of poverty
and distress receive their education, imperfect and deficient as it may be in
many instances. By a participation in the funds intended for the benefit of
all, their means of extending the sphere of their usefulness will be aug-
mented ; and by extending to aii who desire to exercise it, the right of par-
ticipating in the same means, new schools may be established, and temples
of education made as numerous as the nurseries of vice.

It can scarcely be necessary to say that the founders of these schools,
and those who wish to establish others, have absolute rights to the benefits
of a common burden ; and that any system which deprives them of their
just share in the application of a common and public fund, must be justi-
fied, if at all, by a necessity which demands the sacrifice of individual rights
for the accomplishment of a social benefit of paramount importance.

It is presumed no such necessity can be urged in the present instance.
On the contrary, the views which will be subsequently presented, afford
strong ground for the belief that the education of a much larger number
than now are, or under any circumstances may be expected to be, provided
for by the 'Public School Society, or any one society, will be secured by in-
viting the cooperation and stimulating the exertions of all who are disposed
to engage in the enterprise.

The Gpmplaint that, in the schools of the Public School Society, the
conscientious opinions and feelings of large classes of our fellow-citizens
are disregarded, may, at first, appear unreasonable. But when it is con-
sidered that the best of men adhere, with a tenacity proportioned to the
strength and sincerity of their convictions, to those principles of religious
faith upon which, in their estimation, their present and eternal welfare de-
pends, and that they regard as the most sacred of duties the inculcation of
those principles in the minds of their children, we ought not to be surprised
at their anxiety to exclude all that is hostile to their views from the estab-

MR. SPENCER'S REPORT. 361

lishments to whose care they are invited to commit the education of their
offspring. With many, the transmission of their own creeds to these objects
of their affection is a part, and a most essential part, of their own religious
professions ; and any influences which interrupted it, would be deemed by
such an invasion of their most sacred rights.

Sonic of the memorialists complain that the tendency of the instruction
received in the schools of the Public School Society is unfavorable, if not
hostile, to those principles of faith which they hold dearer than life itself;
and they allege that, consistently with their views of religious duty to their
children, they cannot send them to such schools.

On the other hand, those who oppose any change in the present system
express their apprehensions that, by allowing to all schools a free and equal
participation in the school moneys, the public funds will be applied indi-
rectly, if not directly, to the inculcation of religious dogmas of all descrip-
tions; and some are peculiarly apprehensive of the possible extension of
certain doctrines which they deem erroneous and injurious. Thus the ques-
tion of sectarian influences is mutually raised, with its usual aggravations.
This is a question from the consideration of which some may feel disposed
to shrink, from a vague and indefinite terror of the consequences of its dis-
cussion. But it is believed there is a mode of considering it without par-
ticipating in the feelings of any side, but viewing all as having common and
equal rights, and animated by the same spirit of beneficence, which will
avoid conflict with every thing but prejudice, and conduct to safe and salu-
tary conclusions.

According to the principles of our institutions, no one has the authority
to determine whether the religious doctrines and sentiments of any class of
our citizens be right or wrong. The immunity of the Constitution, and of
an unequivocal public sentiment, is thrown around " the religious faith and
profession " of all our citizens ; and whether a particular creed is professed
by a humble minority, or a powerful majority, can make no other difference
than to excite, in the first case, the generous forbearance of those who may
temporarily have the physical power to oppress, and to animate them to the
strictest fidelity to their obligations. The only object which our fellow-
citizens can have, is the education of all the children of the commonwealth,
in literature, morality, and virtue. "No system is perfect, nor can liberty
be safe, until all who are destined to exercise the rights of citizenship, are
brought within the schools." " Knowledge, however acquired, is better
than ignorance ; and neither error, accident, nor prejudice, ought to be per-
mitted to deprive the State of the education of her citizens."

These principles, recently promulgated by the highest executive authority
in our State, have received the cordial approbation of our fellow-citizens.
In approaching the subject in the same spirit which dictated them, and in
endeavoring to reconcile prejudice, we must not ourselves commit the error
of ascribing improper designs or erroneous principles to others. If there be
error, let reason be enlightened to combat it ; if there be prejudice, let the
humanizing and liberalizing influences of education be brought to beat

362 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

upon it. Let not error and prejudice be perpetuated, by being shut up and
excluded from the light of science.

The object, then, being to procure education at all events if not the
best we could desire, at the first, yet to have education extended to all
classes, in the assured hope of its continual improvement we are to main-
tain the perfect equality of all our citizens in the enjoyment of their rights
in determining the religious character of such instruction. Hence, the first
inquiry to be made is, whether these rights can be maintained under a sys-
tem which rests in any permanent body, or set of men, the control of the
education of a city ?

The great object to be attained is the education of the greatest number
possible. If we cannot at once have that education in the most perfect
form, or in the highest degree, still much is accomplished in having the
good seed sown. It will not only fructify, ripen, and expand, but it will
enrich the soil in which it is cast, and each successive harvest will be more
rich and abundant than its predecessor. If the alternative be presented of
having a limited number of schools, in which instruction of the highest
grade is imparted, but from which one half the proper subjects of educa-
tion are absent, or of having a large number of lower pretensions and less
efficiency, but so organized and situated that all may attend, and affording
strong grounds for the belief that nearly all will be gathered within them,
it would seem that there ought to be no hesitation in the choice, and that
the portals of knowledge ought to be at once thrown open as widely as pos-
sible, with the certainty that improvement will follow the very first elements
of instruction.

It is very true that the Government has assumed only the intellectual
education of the children of the State, and has left their moral arid reli-
gious instruction to be given at the fireside, at the places of public worship,
and at institutions which the piety of individuals may establish for the pur-
pose. But it is believed that, in a country where the great body of our
fellow-citizens recognize the fundamental truths of Christianity, public
sentiment would be shocked by the attempt to exclude all instruction of a
religious nature from the public schools ; and that any plan or scheme of
education, in which no reference whatever was had to moral principles
founded on these truths, would be abandoned by all. In the next place, it
is believed such an attempt would be wholly impracticable. No books can
be found, no reading-lessons can be selected, which do not contain more or
less of some principles of religious faith, either directly avowed or indirectly
assumed. Religion and literature have become inseparably interwoven, and
the expurgation of religious sentiments from the productions of orators,
essayists, and poets, would leave them utterly barren.

Viewing the subject, then, practically, it may be regarded as a settled
axiom in all schemes of education intended for the youth of this country,
that there must be, of necessity, a very considerable amount of religious in-
struction. The trustees of the Public School Society have probably no
more in their schools than could be well avoided, while they profess and
doubtless sincerely their readiness to omit every thing that may be justly

MR. SPENCER'S REPORT. 363

regarded as offensive, they yet maintain and properly that education is
imperfect, without inculcating moral and religious principles ; and hence
they allow the reading of the Scriptures, or portions of them, and inculcate
the leading principles of Christianity. But it is impossible to conceive how
even those principles can be taught, so as to be of any value, without incul-
cating what is peculiar to some one or more denominations, and denied by
others. For it unfortunately happens that, in the infinite diversity of opin-
ion among those claiming to be Christians,-there are but few articles of faith
received by one denomination which are not rejected by another. Even the
reading of the text of our common translation of the Scriptures is objected
to by many, on account of its being, as they allege, erroneous and imperfect >
while others deem its perusal by children, without explanation, positively
injurious. Even the moderate degree of religious instruction which the
Public School Society imparts must, therefore, be sectarian ; that is, it must
favor one set of opinions in opposition to another, or others ; and it is be-
lieved that this always will be the result in any course of education that the
wit of man can devise.

If these views are sound, this dilemma is produced : that, while some
degree of religious instruction is indispensable, and will be had under all
circumstances, it cannot be imparted without partaking, to some extent, of a
sectarian character, and giving occasion for offence to those whose opinions
are thus impugned. But, fortunately, there is a mode of escape from the
difficulty. That mode will be found in a recurrence to the fundamental
principles engrafted on our constitutions, by which no law can be passed
" respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof," and by which " the free exercise and enjoyment of religious pro-
fession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be
allowed in this State, to all mankind." Those by whom our governments
have hitherto been administered, have found that practical effect could be
given to these principles only by scrupulously abstaining from all legislation
whatever on those subjects which involved, or were in any way connected
with, religious faith, profession, or instruction ; and in this course of pro-
ceeding the people have found such a safeguard against oppression, such a
security against the dissensions and animosities of intolerance and bigotry,
and such a guarantee of peace and tranquillity, that it has been constantly,
and under all vicissitudes, unanimously approved by them.

On this principle of what may be termed absolute non-intervention, may
we rely to remove all the apparent difficulties which surround the subject
under consideration. In the theory of the common school law which governs
the whole State, except the city of New York, it is fully and entirely main-
tained ; and in the administration of that law, it is sacredly observed. No
officer, among the thousands having charge of our common schools, thinks
of interposing by any authoritative direction, respecting the nature or extent
of moral or religious instruction to be given in the schools. Its whole con-
trol is left to the free and unrestricted action of the people themselves, in
their several districts. The law provides for the organization of districts,
the election of officers, and the literary and moral qualification of teachers,

364 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

and leaves all else to the regulation of those for whose benefit the system is
devised. The practical consequence is, that each district suits itself, by
having such religious instruction in its school as is congenial to the opinions
of its inhabitants ; and the records of this department have been searched
in vain for an instance of a complaint of any abuse of this authority, in any
of the schools out of the city of New York. To those who will reflect on
the multitude of denominations in our State widely differing from each
other on subjects of such exciting interest, this result will not be more
astonishing, than it will be convincing, of the wisdom of the principle of
non-intervention by the State or its agents.

It is manifest that the great source of the difficulties in the city of New
York arises from a violation of this principle. The practical operation of
the school laws is to constitute the trustees of the Public School Society the
officers and agents of the Government in the administration of the system
of primary instruction in that city. That Society, in effect, engrosses the
public education of the city ; and instead of operating on small masses, as
in the interior, embraces the whole. In such a system the principle of non-
intervention can be applied only by the total abandonment of all religious
instruction. For, as is supposed to have been already shown, it is impossi-
ble to prescribe any amount of such instruction for a population of three
hundred and thirteen thousand souls, without offending the religious princi-
ples of many. But if the degree and kind could be left to the choice of
parents, in small masses, then the object would be obtained, with the con-
currence of all, religious instruction would be imparted to the young, with-
out encountering the feelings, prejudices, or conscientious views of any.
The defect is one which, so far from being peculiar to the Public School
Society, is necessarily inherent in every form of organization which places
under one control large masses of discordant materials, which, from the
nature of things, cannot submit to any control. If that Society had charge
.of the children of one denomination only, there would be no difficulty. It
is because it embraces children of all denominations, and seeks to supply to
them all a species of instruction which is adapted only to a part, and which,
from its nature, cannot be moulded to suit the views of all, that it fails, and
ever .must fail, to give satisfaction on a subject of all others the most vital
and the most exciting. If there is not entire fallacy in all these views if
the experience of twenty-five years, derived from the school districts of the
interior, is not wholly worthless, then the remedy is plain, practical, and
simple. It is by adopting the principle of the organization that prevails in
the other parts of the State, which will leave such parents as desire to exer-
cise any control over the amount and description of religious instruction
which shall be given to their children, the opportunity of doing so. This
can be effected by depriving the present system in New York of its charac-
ter of universality and exclusiveness, and by opening it to the action of
smaller masses, whose interests and opinions may be consulted in their
schools, so that every denomination may freely enjoy its " religious profes-
sion " in the education of its youth.

To this plan objections have been made, that it would enable different

MR. SPENCER'S REPORT. 365

religious denominations to establish schools of a sectarian character, and
that thereby religious dissensions would be aggravated, if not generated.
The first objection has already been partially considered. It is believed to
have been satisfactorily shown, that there must be some degree of religious
instruction, and that there can be none without partaking more or less of a
sectarian character ; and that even the Public School Society has not been
able, and cannot expect to be able, to avoid the imputation. In this respect,
then, matters cannot well be in a worse condition than they are at present.
The objection itself proceeds on a sectarian principle, and assumes the
power to control that which it is neither right nor practicable to submit to
any denomination. Religious doctrines of vital interest will be inculcated,
not as theological exercises, but incidentally, in the course of literary and
scientific and who will undertake to prohibit such instruction ?

It is not perceived how religious dissensions will be aggravated. The
objection supposes a particular school to belong to a particular denomina-
tion ; of course, it will be in unison with it. The < founders, teachers, and
pupils of the different schools will act separately and independently in their
respective spheres, and will not come in contact or collision with each other.
A rivalry may, and probably will, be produced between them, to increase
the number of pupils. As an essential means to such an object, there will
be a constant effort to improve the schools in the mode and degree of in-
struction, and in the qualifications of the teachers. Thus, not only will the
number of children brought into the schools be incalculably augmented, but
the competition anticipated will produce its usual effect of providing the
very best material to satisfy the public demand. These advantages will
more than compensate for any possible evils that may be apprehended from
having schools adapted to the feelings and views of the different denomina-
tions. The undersigned cannot but think those evils are magnified, and
that the experience derived from the operation of the system in the other
parts of the State effectually dispels all apprehensions of that nature. Be-
sides, a peculiar remedy will be found, in the city of New York, from the
proximity of the schools, and the opportunity thus afforded to become
acquainted with any abuses by which the public moneys should be pervert-
ed to theological instruction, in place of those literary studies which should
be pursued during the hours allotted to common school education. The
watchfulness of those who apprehend the abuse may be relied on to detect
it promptly, and to seek the needful remedy, by application to those having
the power to apply it.

It is believed to be an error to suppose that the absence of all religious
instruction, if it were practicable, is a mode of avoiding sectarianism. On
the contrary, it would be in itself sectarian, because it would be consonant
to the views of a particular class, and opposed to the views of other classes.
Those who reject creeds, and resist all efforts to infuse them into the minds
of the young before they have arrived at a maturity of judgment which
may enable them to form their own opinions, would be gratified by a system
which so fully accomplishes their purposes. But there are those who hold
contrary opinions, and who insist on guarding the young against the influ-

366 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ences of their own passions, and the contagion of vice, by implanting in
their minds and hearts those elements of faith which are held by this class
to be the indispensable foundations of moral principles. This description
of persons regard neutrality and indifference as the most insidious forms of
hostility. It is not the business of the undersigned to express any opinion
on the merits of these views. His only purpose is, to show the mistake of
those who suppose they may avoid sectarianism by avoiding all religious
instruction.

But the schools and houses of the Public School Society ought not to be
abandoned ; and the inestimable benefits of its admirable arrangements and
constant supervision should not be lost. Let them also be retained, and
placed on the same footing with other organized schools, and allowed to
participate in the public contributions in the same ratio. The character of
their schools will secure them a preference with an intelligent public where
no obstacles of a religious character interpose ; and if all their houses can-
not be filled, under teachers of their own selection, it cannot be doubted
that the same benevolent spirit which has hitherto actuated the trustees,
would induce them to permit their occupation by others, for a reasonable
rc-nt, or to transfer them to such associations as should desire to purchase
them. The precious gems which now stud the city would thus be multi-
plied to an extent that can scarcely be calculated ; all conscientious objec-
tions would be removed ; the people themselves would become interested in
(he subjects of their own care and protection ; a public spirit in the cause
of primary education, and a desire for its improvement, would be excited
and extended ; a generous rivalry would be promoted ; while the Public
School Society would find ample scope for its benevolence in educating the
children of those who approve its system, and in pursuing the original
object of its institution the gathering into its schools those who were not
otherwise provided with the means of instruction.

Another prominent objection made by the memorials referred to by the
undersigned is, that the existing system in New York devolves upon a pri-
vate corporation the discharge of an important function of government;
without a direct and immediate responsibility to the people. It is certainly
an anomaly wholly unknown in any other department of the public service,
that a private corporation, existing independently, not amenable in any form
to the laws or to the Legislature, should be charged with what those laws
regard as a part of the functions of the Government the disbursement of
the public moneys at its own will and pleasure, the selection of teachers, of
whose qualification it is the sole judge, and the establishment and mainte-
nance of a system of public education according to its own ideas of pro-
priety. It is not subject to the supervision of the State authorities, to whom
all other parts of the system of public instruction are committed. Educa-
tion cannot be considered a subject of local interest in the city of New York
more than in any other part of the State, although it has come to be so
regarded by many, in consequence of the Legislature having devolved its
own power upon the Common Council. But it is a public and common con-
cern, of which the Government has taken cognizance, and which, for the

ME. SPENCER'S BEPOKT. 367

common good of all, it is bound to see equally and fairly administered. The
interest of the State is not only pecuniary, arising from the expenditure of
more than $34,000, annually contributed from its own funds, but it is of a
high social and political character ; and every reason which should induce
its guardianship and care over other portions of its territory, apply with
equal force to the city of New York. Experience has shown the necessity
for its interposition heretofore, without the application of the local authori-
ties, to prevent the misapplication and waste of the school moneys.

The only species of control to which the Public School Society is sub-
ject, is that which may be found in the power of the Common Council to
omit the designation of the schools of the Society to receive the funds raised
for common school purposes. But, in the present condition of things, this
power can, probably, never be exercised. That Society owns in fee, or has
perpetual leases of, the numerous school-houses erected by means of the pub-
lic school moneys, and the contributions, comparatively unimportant, of its
members. If these houses should not be occupied, there would be a total
want of the accommodations necessary for the public schools. The abuses
must be flagrant, and wholly intolerable, which would justify the Common
Council in driving into the streets the multitude of children who now
occupy these houses, by withholding the public school moneys from the
Society ; and it may well be considered not the least among the evil conse-
quences of the present system, that a private corporation should thus have
acquired the title of what is substantially public funds and should be pub-
lic property, and thus be enabled effectually to prevent the exercise of even
the only semblance of control over its proceedings provided by law.

However acceptable the services of such a Society may have been in the
first imperfect effort to establish common schools, however willing the peo-
ple may have been to submit to an institution which promised immediate
benefit, and however praiseworthy and successful may have been its efforts,
yet it involves a principle so hostile to the whole spirit of our institutions,
that it is impossible it should be long sustained amid the increased intelli-
gence which its own exertions have contributed to produce, especially when
other and more congenial means of attaining the same objects have been
pointed out, and when, therefore, the necessity which called it into existence
has ceased. The public attention is now roused to the subject, and many
thousands of the citizens of New York demand the right of controlling,
through responsible public agents, the education of their children, and the
application of common funds to which they have contributed for a common
object. We must forget that we live under a government of the people,
before such a demand can be effectually resisted. Procrastination and delay
will only increase its urgency, render it more exacting, and multiply the
difficulties of satisfying it consistently with a just regard to the useful pur-
poses to which the Public School Society may be applied. It must succeed,
sooner or later ; and it is the part of wisdom and duty to yield to that
which is just in itself, promptly, and before agitation and excitement de-
prive acquiescence of all merit. We are not at liberty to say that our fel-
low-citizens who make this claim are incapable of performing the duty

368 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

which they would undertake. Our constitutions admit their competency to
manage all the affairs of government ; and the foundation of our whole sys-
tem must be overturned, before we can deny to them the capacity to deter-
mine on the mode, manner, and extent of instruction to be given to their
offspring. Besides, the example of a sister city Boston where the man-
agers of the public schools are, and for years have been, elected by the peo-
ple in their respective wards whose schools are equal, if not superior, to
any others in our country furnishes the most effectual answer to any appre-
hensions that might be indulged, from trusting the people with the selection
of the agents to administer a system that so nearly concerns them. And yet
in this, as in every other public business, the energies of the people require
a system to regulate and conduct them to the best results. Such a system,
emanating from agents of their own selection, and maintained, controlled,
and superintended by them, will command the confidence and invite the
cooperation of the constituents. This may be accomplished by the choice
of commissioners of common schools in each ward of the city, who should
form a board, to which some degree of permanency may be given by allow-
ing the election of one third each year, which board should take the entire
charge of the common schools of the city, receiving and disbursing the
public funds, establishing schools and a system for their government and
inspection, and providing the means of testing the qualifications of teach-
ers. They might be aided by a city superintendent, with such compensa-
tion as should secure the best talent and the whole time of the incumbent ;
and then leave the schools to the management of trustees chosen by those
who established them, and to the general laws of the State.

Considering the various feelings and interests that would be called into
action by such a system, there can be little doubt that one of its immediate
effects would be, to bring into the schools a large portion, if not the whole,
of those who are now utterly destitute of instruction. With all the com-
mendable and vigorous efforts of the trustees of the Public School Society,
it cannot be denied that less than one half the children between 4 and 16
years of age, in the city of New York, are receiving the benefits of any edu-
cation whatever. From the statements in the annual report of the Superin-
tendent of Common Schools for the present year (Assembly Document No.
100), it appears that the whole number of white children in New York, in
1840, over 5 and under 16 years of age, was 62,952, and that 30,758 only are
returned as attending some school, leaving 32,194 who were not in attend-
ance on any school whatever. In a memorial of the Public School Society
presented to the Legislature at its present session, it is stated that " multi-
tudes are entirely destitute of the necessary means of acquiring the first
rudiments of education, and must, unless specially provided for, grow up in
gross ignorance." In the same memorial, it is alleged " that the whole ex-
tent of existing accommodations for the purpose of imparting school learn-
ing is sufficient for but about 35,000, as well in private as in public schools."
The fact seems, then, undeniable, that the paramount obligation of impart-
ing instruction to the mass of children has not been accomplished in the
city of New York. That accommodations exist for a larger number than

MR. SPENCER'S REPORT. 369

attend the schools, may be inferred from the fact already mentioned, that,
while the Public School Society has registered, on its books the names of
children who have entered its schools to the number of 22,955, the average
actual attendance of pupils amounts only to 13,189. The same inference
may be drawn from the fact of the efforts made by the trustees to bring in a
larger number of children than those who were registered efforts which
could not have been made if there were no room for their accommodation.

A comparison of the results obtained from statistical returns, between
the numbers educated in New York and those instructed in the schools in
the other parts of the State, will exhibit in a more striking manner the
lamentable deficiency of the former. It appears, from the report of the
Superintendent before referred to, that, while there are 592,000 children out
of the city of New York between the ages of 5 and 16, there are 549,000
returned as attending the common schools. In the city of New York, the
proportions were, as before stated, 62,952 children Jjetween the same ages,
and 80,758 attending all schools, public as well as private. In that city, less
than one tenth of the population are receiving the benefit of any instruc-
tion ; while in the interior, more than one fourth of the whole population
are returned, as being in the public schools, without any enumeration of
those placed in select schools. The like proportion must exist in the city
and in the interior, of those who have already received all the education
they or their parents desire, or who are engaged as apprentices, or in other
employments preventing them from attending at any place of instruction.
It is obvious, therefore, that the number not receiving education in the city
cannot be accounted for in that manner. The probability is, that the num-
ber of those under 5 and over 16 who attend the schools, both in the city
and out of it, is very nearly, if not quite, equal to the number between those
ages who have received all the education they intend to attain.

With these facts before us, it must be admitted that the Public School
Society has not accomplished the principal purpose of its organization, and
for which the public funds have been so freely bestowed upon it the edu-
cation of the great body of the children of the city. From the remarks
already made, it would seem to be manifest that the cause of this failure is
not to be ascribed to the want of accommodations for the pupils ; and there
certainly has been no lack of exertion to induce their attendance. The trus-
tees personally, and visitors appointed by them, have repeatedly traversed
the city, to seek out the parents of the neglected children, and persuade
them to avail themselves of the benefits of the schools. Tracts have been
Circulated, and handbills posted in every direction, for the same purpose.
The city authorities have passed resolutions urging this imperative duty
upon parents, and declaring that those who neglected to send their children
to the schools at least some portion of the time, could not be considered
proper objects of public charity. And yet the result is the same ; the streets
are infested with vagrant children, and " multitudes " of the youth are
brought up in ignorance, and probably in vice. That there is a defect some-
where, is certain. In addition to the causes of dissatisfaction already men-
tioned, particularly that arising from religious feelings, it is believed that a
24

370 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

great obstacle to the efforts of the Society is to be found in the idea preva-
lent among the people, that an attempt is made to coerce them, directly or
indirectly, to do something -which others take a great interest in having
done. They are not left, or called on, to act spontaneously to originate any
thing, or take any part in matters which they are told most deeply concern
themselves. It is not a voluntary system, in the fullest and broadest meaning
of the term. To illustrate the idea intended to be communicated, the pres-
ent system may be compared to the religious establishments formed and
supported by the governments of Europe, upon the plea that they are neces-
sary to the moral instruction of the people ; and that, without them, their
subjects would degenerate into heathenism. It was reserved for the Ameri-
can people to prove the fallacy of this position. An experience of fifty
years has shown that religious worship has been better provided for, and
attendance upon it has been more general, by being left to the free and vol-
untary action of the people, without the aid of any legal establishment ; in
other words, without any attempt to coerce the support of religious institu-
tions, or to compel any one to participate in their advantages. This remark
is equally true of the city and of the country.

It is not intended to assert that the system of the Public School Society
is like the religious establishments of Europe ; but the comparison between
those establishments and the practical operation of our principle of non-
intervention, is instituted for the purpose of exhibiting clearly and distinctly
the advantage of a voluntary system, particularly among a people governed
by republican institutions. The plan of the Public School Society is, in
some measure, antagonist to this system. It provides an educational estab-
lishment, and solicits the charge of children, to be placed under its exclu-
sive control, without allowing to the parents of the pupil the direction of
the course of studies, the management of the schools, or any voice in the
selection of teachers; it calls 'for no action or cooperation on the part of
those parents, other than the entire submission of their children to the gov-
ernment and guidance of others, probably strangers, and who are in no way
accountable to these parents. Such a system is so foreign to the feelings,
habits, and usages of our citizens, that its failure to enlist their confidence,
and induce a desire to place their children under its control, ought not to
excite surprise.

Since, then, the experiment which has been made for fifteen years, under
such favorable auspices, has not accomplished its main purpose, of bringing
under the control of any one private corporation the great mass of the indi-
gent children of the city ; and since it is obvious there are inherent difficul-
ties, which will constantly accumulate, to prevent the success of such an
experiment, is it not the dictate of wisdom, if not of duty, to vary the
mode, and ascertain whether, by engaging the people themselves, actively
and personally, in the care of the schools, a deeper and more extensive inter-
est may not be awakened, and a larger number of children brought to the
school-room ? This, it is conceived, may be effected by the plan already
suggested, of having schools organized, -wherever required, under the juris-
diction of elected commissioners, authorized to participate in the public

MK. SPENCER'S REPORT. 371

contributions in a just proportion. For reasons heretofore given by the un-
dersigned, in his reports as Superintendent, he thinks these schools ought to
be deemed public charities ; and least of all should they have the character
of a forced or compulsory charity. The same principle of apportionment
which exists generally, may safely be applied to them, in proportion to the
actual number of children between 5 and 16 years of age. As, in a city
without regular territorial districts, that number could be ascertained only
from the attendance at the schools, let such actual attendance form the basis
of distribution. Let the schools be considered, like those of the State at
large, as furnishing a just equivalent for moderate charges, adequate for the
expense incurred beyond the public contributions; and apply the same prin-
ciple which prevails in them, of authorizing the exemption from the ex-
penses of the schools of those whose circumstances render it proper.

From the inquiries made by the gentlemen appointed for that purpose,
the undersigned is satisfied that a large proportion probably more than one
half of the pupils attending the schools of the Public School Society are
children of those who are as able to pay for tuition as those persons who
generally send to schools in the interior of the State. Mechanics, men who
live by their daily labor, farmers, and others of very moderate property, con-
stitute the great majority of those who pay the rate-bills for teachers' wages
in the common schools. It may be justly urged as a cause of complaint,
that, in the city of New York, the funds destined particularly for the benefit
of the indigent are applied to the education of the children of those who
are able to pay it themselves. The trustees of the Public School Society
have made the effort to obtain from these persons payment of tuition
charges. In the opinion of the undersigned, the principal reason for their
failure is, that, with them, payment is an exception to the rule, instead of
being the rule itself. Being declared to be free schools and charities, or
being understood .to be such, the individual called on for payment considers
himself oppressed, in being singled out from others, whom he regards as
equally bound to pay. It is probable, also, that an impression prevails that
an adequate fund is provided by the State, and by city taxation, for the
education of all. It is believed that, if the schools of the Society are placed
on the footing already indicated, their superiority over most, if not all, of
those that may be established by other associations, will enable the trustees
to supply any diminution in the number of pupils caused by the establish-
ment of other schools, from those classes of citizens who are able, and
would prefer, to pay for the instruction of their children ; and thus would
the whole number of instructed children in the city be multiplied, and the
funds of the Public School Society would, in all probability, be augmented,
and rendered adequate to the highest grade and the most approved methods
of instruction. If, however, contrary to those expectations, it should be
found that the pay system cannot be relied on for the support of the schools,
there can be no reason to doubt that the same liberal and enlightened spirit,
which has heretofore induced the citizens of New York, and the Common
Council, voluntarily to add to their public burdens for the great purposes
of education, would continue to influence them, and would provide all the

372 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

means necessary to render that city as distinguished for its care of the intel-
lectual condition of its children, as for its wealth, enterprise, and benevo-
lence.

The outlines of the plan submitted are as follows :

1. The election of a commissioner of common schools in each ward of
the city.

2. The extension of the general school laws of the State to the city, with
the modifications herein mentioned.

3. The commissioners to adopt and take under their charge the schools
of the Public School Society, and the schools of the other associations and
asylums now receiving the public money, as schools under their general
jurisdiction, leaving the immediate government and management of them
to their respective trustees and directors.

4. The commissioners to organize and establish schools in other parts of
the city, wherever they can find a sufficient number o inhabitants to main-
tain them, as district schools, with the usual officers, to be chosen by such
inhabitants, and with the usual power of districts, to hire school-rooms, pro-
vide teachers, and defray expenses by rate-bills.

5. The public school moneys to be paid directly to the commissioners by
the Chamberlain of the city. Out of the amount, the compensation of a
city superintendent, and of a clerk to the commissioners, and their necessary
expenses, to be paid, the balance to be apportioned and distributed to the
different schools under their jurisdiction, and to be applied exclusively to
the payment of teachers' wages ; such apportionment to be made upon accu-
rate lists, verified by oath, of the whole number of children between the
ages of 5 and 16 actually attending the schools, to be ascertained by keep-
ing an exact account of the number of pupils present the whole day, which,
being added together and divided by 261 the number of school-days in a
year, excluding Saturdays and Sundays shall be deemed the average of
attending scholars. The number of children exempted from paying tuition
money and school expenses to be reported to the commissioners, with their
average attendance, ascertained as before mentioned, and a sufficient sum to
be apportioned in the first instance to the school in which they have attend-
ed, to make up to them respectively the amount of such exemption, if the
funds be sufficient for that purpose ; and if not, then such funds to be ap-
portioned wholly among the exempt pupils, in proportion to their attend-
ance. If there be a surplus, then to apportion it among the remaining
pupils not included in the first distribution. Provision to be made to detect
and prevent improper exemptions ; against which, however, an effectual
safeguard will be found in the desire of the trustees to diminish the amount
chargeable to pay scholars. If the public money appropriated in the first
instance to the education of the indigent should not be adequate, there can
be little doubt that the citizens of New York would consent to raise the
additional sum required ; and, at all events, the* paramount object of pro-
viding for the destitute to the greatest possible extent will have been
attained.

If, after all that has been urged, the apprehension should still be in-

SPEECH OF ME. E.ETCHTJM. 373

dulged that any schools would be perverted to the purposes of a narrow and
exclusive sectarianism during the hours allotted to instruction, instead of
the proper subjects of a common school education, a remedy may be found
by giving authority to. the Board of Commissioners to investigate complaints
of such an abuse, and, upon satisfactory evidence, dissolve the offending
school, or withhold from it any share in the public school moneys.

The undersigned has thus endeavored to perform a duty unsought by
him, and of which the difficulty and delicacy were fully appreciated. In its
discharge, he is conscious of no other motive or object than the promotion,
to the utmost possible extent, of that cause which, by official obligations as
well as personal feeling, he is bound to promote. Much of time and anxious
consideration have been bestowed, in the hope of presenting the subject in
such a manner as should, at all events, place its prominent features in full
view of the Legislature, and thus assist in arriving at such conclusions as
may secure the rights of all, maintain existing institutions in all their vigor
and usefulness, enlist the public feeling in the success of schools, and open
them to the destitute of all classes.

All which is respectfully submitted.

JOHN C. SPENCER, Secretary of State.

ALBANY, April 26, 1841.

After the report had been referred to the Committee on Lit-
erature, Governor Seward and Mr. Spencer visited the city for
the purpose of personal consultation with the trustees of the
Public School Society, and their opponents, on the subject of the
proposed alteration in the system. Several interviews were had,
at which the bill was made the subject of earnest discussion.

The Committee on Literature, in the Senate, appointed ^ft
meeting for the purpose of hearing the contending parties, and
affording them an opportunity to present their view. James W.
l^cKeon and "Wright Hawks appeared for the Catholics, and
Hiram Ketchum for the Society, May 8th.

Mr. KETCHTJM rose, and addressed the committee as follows :

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE : As a member of
the Board of Public Schools of the city of New Tork, and in behalf of the
Public School Society, I now appear here ; and I will, by leave of the com-
mittee, make a few remarks upon the report which has been referred to it.
The subject discussed in this report is one of great interest to the city of
New York. ' It affects the cause of education, and especially of the educa-
tion of the poor ; and as the Public School Society has long had the princi-
pal charge of that matter, and as they believe that the statements, the infer-
ences, and the reasoning contained in this report of the Secretary of State,
are calculated to affect injuriously that cause, they have prayed that their
views might be laid before the Senate, and sent in their memorial to that
effect. The Senate having appointed a committee to hear the Public School

374 THE I'UBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Society, I now appear to make such remarks as occur to me; premising
that, probably, at no very late day, the Society, by-way of memorial or re-
monstrance, will lay their objections to this report before the Senate and the
public in a more permanent form, than they will now be presented to the
committee.

In this report, drawn up with great ability, as every paper and docu-
ment emanating from the Secretary of this State is drawn up in this report,-
I say, there is contained a brief history of the legislation upon the subject
of the distribution of the school moneys in the city of New York. As this
passage occupies but a short space, I will take leave to read it. At page 2,
the Secretary says :

It is essential to the proper consideration of the subject, to understand
the history of the legislation that has been had in reference to it ; and par
ticularly in relation to the Public School Society of the city of New York.

The first law relating to that portion of the school moneys apportioned
to and raised in the city of New York, was passed in 1813, and will be
found in the first volume of the Revised Laws of that year, at page 267. It
directed those moneys to be distributed " to the trustees of the Free-School
Society, the Orphan Asylum Society, the Economical School, the African
Free School, and the trustees of such incorporated religious societies in said
city as now support, or hereafter shall establish, charity schools within the
said city, who may apply for the same." The act directed that the sum
thus distributed should be applied to the payment of the wages of the
teachers, and to no other purposes whatever. As these were all charity
schools, it is obvious that the Legislature intended that the school moneys
apportioned to the city, as well as those raised by tax, should be consecrated
to the education exclusively of the indigent. Under this act, apportion-
ments were annually made to the schools enumerated, and to those estab-
lished by some eight or ten of the different religious denominations, until
the year 1824. By chapter 276 of the Session Laws of that year, the above-
mentioned act was repealed, and the Common Council of the city was au-
thorized to designate " the societies or schools which should be entitled to
receive a share of the school moneys, and prescribe the rules and restric-
tions, under which such moneys shall be received by such societies or schools
respectively." Pursuant to this act, the Common Council have designated
the schools of the Public School Society, and six or eight other schools, to
which all the public moneys have, since 1826, been distributed, with some
variations in different years, as to the other schools. From the annual re-
ports and other documents, a statement has been compiled, from which it
appears that more than one million of dollars has been paid to the trustees
of the Society, under its different names, since 1813, out of the public
moneys appropriated by the State, and raised by tax on the city for school
purposes, and that $125,248.57, have been paid to the other schools before
mentioned.

The Public School Society was originally incorporated in 1805, by chap-
ter 108 of the laws of that session, which is entitled, " An Act to Incorpor-
ate the Society instituted in the City of New York, for the establishment of
a free school for the education of poor children, who do not belong to, or
are not provided for by, any religious society." In 1808 its name was
changed to " The Free School Society of New York," and its powers were
extended " to all children who are the proper subjects of a gratuitous edu-
cation." By chapter 25 of the laws of 1826, its name was changed to "The
Public School Society of New York," and the trustees were authorized to
provide for the education of all children of New York, not otherwise pro-
vided for, " whether such children be or be not the proper subjects of

SPEECH OF ME. KETCIIUM. 375

gratuitous education ; and to require from those attending the schools, a
moderate compensation ; but no child to be refused admission on account
of inability to pay."

This brief history of the distribution of the school moneys in the city
of New York (continued Mr. Ketchum) is accurate so far as it goes ; but
the Secretary has left' out some particulars which -we deem of some import-
ance in this discussion.

In the first place, these moneys were originally appropriated to the pay-
ment of teachers, and to no other purpose ; but after the Lancastrian sys-
tem of education had been introduced into the city of New York, and the
Free-School Society had been established, it was found that, under the
monitorial system, so great was the number of children attending these
schools, that a larger amount of money was drawn from the public school
fund than was necessary to pay the teachers ; and in the year 1817, the
surplus was permitted by the Legislature to be appropriated by the Public
School Society for the purchase of books and. stationery, and other inci-
dental expenses attending the education of children ; so that, from that
time, the Public School Society drew its quota, and applied it not only to
the payment of teachers, but also to those other purposes which I have
named.' This privilege was at tkat time enjoyed exclusively by the Public
School Society ; and I suppose that the principle upon which the exclusive
privilege was granted, was, that the Free-School Society for so it was then
called was incorporated exclusively for the purposes of education, and of
educating poor children ; and there was, therefore, in the constitution of
the Society itself, in the act of its incorporation, no inducement or motive
for mal-application or misappropriation of the funds ; and hence it was, I
presume, that the Legislature, in its wisdom, saw no danger in trusting
whatever funds were drawn by that institution, to be applied not only to
the payment of teachers, but for the general purposes of education.

This, then, is one omission which the Secretary has made.

The second omission is, that the Secretary has not attempted to account
(as I think he should have done) for the reason why the public school
moneys in the city of New York were differently applied from those in the
country. In the country, as the committee well know, the amount, as in the
city, received from the common school fund is paid over to the proper officer
in the county. The county has to raise by tax an amount equivalent to the
sum thus received, and then it passes into the hands of commissioners chosen
by the people in their respective districts. In the city of New York, how-
ever, no legislation of that description was provided. The money was paid
over to the chamberlain, and the chamberlain was directed to pay it to cer-
tain designated societies of which the School Society was one, and all
religious societies maintaining charity schools ; the Orphan Asylum and
some others being specified.

Now, it seems to me that, in order to have presented the subject fairly
and fully, the Secretary should Have accounted for this difference. I will
attempt to account for it now. In the country, that portion of the com-
mon school fund which goes to each county, is paid as a sort of premium,

376 ' THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

or advance, to induce the establishment and maintenance of common schools.
The State says to the respective counties, We will give you so much ; and
this is given as an adtance, or premium, or bonus, for the establishment and
maintenance of these common schools throughout the country. In the
country, the schools so established and so participating in this fund are the
schools in -which the children of the county the children of the poor of
the county as well as the offspring of persons of property, generally re-
ceive their elementary education. The tax-paying part of the community
those who are called upon to raise this equivalent tax (in the first place,
in order to receive the fund from the State, and, in the second place, to
provide for the erection of school-houses in the respective school districts)
this tax-paying part of the community, I say, have, for the most part,
Ihcir own sons and daughters educated in these very schools which are es-
tablished and maintained by this money. Therefore, it will be plainly seen
that this tax-paying community which, and which alone, elects the com-
missioners in towns which alone elects the trustees in districts, have a
direct personal interest in electing suitable persons ; because those very per-
sons are to take charge of the education of their children. There is prob-
ably very little danger that any thing like party politics will mingle up in
the election of these officers ; because these very officers are to perform a
most important and interesting duty to the children of the very men who
are called upon to pay the tax. Not so in the city of New York. There,
by the law enacted in the year 1813, this fund was originally expressly ap-
propriated to the education of the indigent of the poor of the children
of those who do not pay tax to those who are the proper subjects of gratui-
tous education ; and none but charity schools, none but the children of the
poor, none but the proper subjects of a gratuitous education, were to be
benefitted at all by this portion of the fund so received from the State, and
by the equivalent portion so raised by tax. To this the tax-payers in the
city of New York consented ; because, if the first objection to such a law
had been made on the part of that city, it would not have passed in this
form. This was undoubtedly a matter made to fall in or acquiesce with the
wishes of the delegation from the city of New York ; because the Legisla-
ture never would have undertaken, without such acquiescence, to have made
that distinction ; therefore I say, that the citizens of New York, through
their representatives here, consented that the bread which the State had
provided for their own children should be given to the poor ; they volun-
tarily parted with it, and gave it to the indigent among them.

Thus, then, we sse that the fund was given to the indigent by those who
spoke for the people of the city of New York in the Legislature ; and I
have but this hour heard that a man, whose name is dear to us all De
Witt Clinton was the man who principally represented the wishes of the
city of New York at that time. It was De Witt Clinton that spoke in be-
half of the city of New York who made this provision.

And inasmuch as this was a gratuity, a charity for the poor people of
that city, she chose that the money should pass through the hands of cer-
tain almoners of her own choice. She chose that the Free-School Society,

SPEECH OF MR. KETCIIUM. 377

the Orphan Asylum Society, the religious bodies which maintained schools
there at that time, should be her almoners. Suppose, at that day, it had
been proposed, as it is now proposed by the Secretary, that the people
should choose commissioners that the tax-paying portion of this people
(because none others then were, or now are, entitled to vote on these mat-
ters in the country) should choose commissioners, there was lacking that
powerful motive which would influence freeholders, and the tax-paying
portion of the community, to elect proper men for the performance of this
duty the motive which was to be found in the fact that their own children
were to be educated by these very persons. This probably may account
very sensibly for the fact that, in the city of New York, the portion of the
school fund allotted to her was to be distributed by those almoners of her
charity whom her representatives thought proper to designate. Now, I ask,
was there any thing inconsistent with sound principle in this ? Is there
any thing in it which violates the principle of the largest liberty and the
purest democracy, of which we hear something in this report ? In the city
of New York, as I shall have occasion to show by and by and more or less,
I suppose, it is so in all the States of Christendom there are voluntary
associations, charitable associations, associations composed of men, incor-
porated or otherwise, who are willing to proffer their services to feed the
hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the destitute, and to see to the applica-
tion of funds set apart for their relief. Such men are always to be found .
in large cities men of fortune, men of leisure, men of benevolence, who
are willing to associate together for benevolent objects, and who are usually
rnade the almoners of the charity of others. Such is the case in the city
of New York. That is the usual mode (as I shall have occasion to show,
though it can scarcely be necessary to do it before this intelligent com-
mittee) that is the usual mode of distributing funds there, and experience
has demonstrated that it has been attended with good and wholesome re-
sults. The city of New York chose, therefore, to adopt this mode of dis-
tributing her moneys ; and this, probably, is one of the reasons why this
distinction between the city and the country was incorporated in the act of
1813. Another reason undoubtedly was, that, in a city such as New York,
there is more or less political excitement mingling in every public measure.
All who have lived there know that, especially within a few years past, we
have'had a degree of political excitement which has been very inconvenient ;
and that at all times, in a close and dense population, more of that excite-
ment and heat are felt than prevails amongst the more sparse population of
the country, and, probably, possibly it entered into the consideration of the
wise men (for, if they were like him whom I have named, they deserve that
appellation in its highest sense) in the Legislature of that day, that, for the
purpose of keeping this matter out of the vortex of party and political ex-
citement, this money should be paid over to, and distributed under, the
superintendence of agents consisting of these respective societies. This,
then, it seems to me, is another omission in this report of the Secretary. I
speak with deference. And the third omission is, that the Secretary has
failed to tell us why the act of 1824 was passed, which gives the money

378 TIJE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

provided by the State to the Common Council of the city of New York, to
be distributed by them as they might think proper. I will supply the
omission. .

Anterior to the year 1824, the Legislature designated the institutions and
schools which should participate in this fund. These were, the Free-School
Society, and religious societies supporting charity schools, and some others.
About the year 1822 (I would premise, however, that the religious societies,
and all except the Public School Society, were restricted in the use of these
funds to the payment of teachers) about the year 1822, a society, called
the Bethel Church of the City of New York, obtained a privilege similar
to that which had been granted to the Public School Society, and applied
the surplus, after the payment of teachers, to the purchase of stationery
and the erection of buildings. The operation of that plan was this : in-
asmuch as that society, in common with all others, drew per head for the
number of children taught in the schools, or, rather, for the number of chil-
dren placed on the register of the schools, to be taught, this Bethel Church,
under the direction of Johnson Chase, at that time their pastor, gave small
presents and rewards, to induce, children to come in. They came in, and
their names were put on the register ; and when the yearly account came
to be made out, they drew for the number of children on the register, and
the consequence was, that a large portion of the fund was appropriated to
.the erection of buildings belonging to the Bethel Church; thus using the
common school fund of the city of New York, and the equivalent tax paid
there, to the erection of religious temples to be used by a particular de-
nomination of Christians. Before this law of 1822 was passed, and while
the sum received was specifically appropriated to the payment of teachers,
the Bethel Church, or, rather, their pastor, evaded the law in the following
manner : The teacher was employed at a large salary ; he received the salary
with the understanding that, while he received it in one hand, with the
other he should make over a portion to the church ; so that the church
received, after all, a portion of the funds paid to teachers.

This alarmed the Public School Society and the community of the city
of New York, and the Society and the Corporation immediately sent a
memorial up here, praying that the provision of the law giving peculiar
privilege to the Bethel Baptist Church might be repealed. Hence ensued
a contest which lasted two or three years before the Legislature, in which
the people of the city of New York took great interest, and which was a
very exciting contest even here, in the city of Albany. Here was seen to be
an attempt made to take away the public school fund of the city of New
York for the purposes of the Bethel Church ; and the city authorities, and
the associations participating in the fund, all became alarmed.

We came here and discussed this matter ; and our proposition was, then,
to restrict these religious societies to the poor children of parents statedly
worshipping with those societies. This was thought to be a fair proposal.
The subject was discussed on various successive occasions, until, at length,
it was seen, by those who examined it, that this matter of paying the school
fund. to religious societies, whereby the doctrines of particular religious

SPEECH OF ME. KETCHUM. 379

sects should be sustained and supported by this fund, was a violation of a
great fundamental principle. It was the union of Church and State, which
the laws and the institutions of this country abhor. It was taking the funds
of the people the tax received out of the pockets of the people and ap-
plying it to the establishment and promotion of religious societies. Well,
although, it is a good thing to have these religious societies, yet it was seen
that a vital principle was here violated. Hence, after many discussions in
the Assembly chamber (discussions at which all the members were invited
to attend and almost all of them did attend, for we had generally a quorum,
although it was before a committee night after night), the committee of the
Assembly at length made a report favorable to the prayer of the memorial ;
but suggesting, in that very report, whether even so much as was granted in
the proposition referred to was not a violation of sound principle ; wheth-
er, in fact, religious societies ought to participate in the enjoyment of the
fund at all, because, by such participation, the Jew might be made to sup-
port the doctrine of the Christian ; and, vice-versa, the Christian that of the
Jew, the Catholic of the Protestant, the Protestant of the Catholic, and so
on. After much discussion, after the subject had been agitated before the
Legislature week after week (as a member of the Public School Society, I
attended here six weeks) after a great contest, in which we had to contend
against the Bethel Church, the Episcopal Church, the Dutch Church, the
Methodist Church, and the Roman Catholic Church, the bill came from the
other House to the Senate, and there was discussed before a committee by
the gentleman who is now Bishop of the State Dr. Onderdonk , on the one
side, and a member of the Board of Public Schools on the other. This was
at the adjourned session of the Legislature, in the fall of 1824, the session
having been continued over from the spring to the fall. Iii this fall session
of 1824, I say, it was that this discussion was had. The committee of the
Senate, seeing that the subject was involved in difficulties, and that it re-
quired a knowledge of local feelings which they did not, and could not,
possess here in the Legislature, inserted an amendment in the bill of the
House, declaring that they would refer the matter to the city of New York,
and that the Corporation should dispose of the school fund apportioned to
that city as they might please. And here I ask leave to say to the commit-
tee, that this power never had been asked for by the Corporation that it
never had been asked for by the Public School Society ; but that the com-
mittee of the, -Senate (and a most intelligent committee it was : 1 do not
recollect all the names at the moment, but I know that Mr. Suydam was
one) that committee decided that they were so ignorant of the peculiarities
of the New York population with reference to this question, that they were
incompetent to decide it rightly ; and they therefore, of their own motion,
incorporated this section in the act, giving power to the Corporation of the
city of New York to dispose of this fund as they thought best. Thus the
power was granted. Now, the proposition of the Secretary in this report is,
that the Legislature shall resume this power ; that that which the Legisla-
ture of 1824 thought proper to give of their own motion, as I have said
for in behalf of the Public School Society no such grant was asked ; and I

380 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

felt great hesitation on the part of the Common Council, -whose memorial I
bore, whether we should accept the grant whether it would not be better
to leave the disposition of the school fund here. We were fearful of local
difficulty. We did not want the power vested in the Corporation ; the Cor-
poration did not want it ; and I never gave my consent to it until after con-
sultation with the President of the Free-School Society at that time, De
Witt Clinton, then residing here, and who said it was more proper that the
Corporation should exercise this power. It was then accepted. Now, I
maintain, that if the proposition of the Secretary, that the Legislature
should resume this power, is to be adopted, it is incumbent on him to show
that the power thus delegated to the Corporation has been abused. I say,
it is incumbent upon him to prove this fact. Here is the Legislature dele-
gating a power granting it to agents selected by the people, composed of
the Common Council of the city of New York. Before this grant, the rep-
resentatives of the people of the city of New York in this Legislature un-
questionably had the sole power of indicating the course of legislation as to
the disposition of the fund apportioned to that city. The Legislature never
would have undertaken to say that these funds should be used in one way
in the city of New York, and in another way in the country, except so far
as they were authorized to say it by the consent of members representing
the city and country respectively.

This is according to the usual course of legislation local in its opera-
tion. " Well, then," said the committee of the Senate, in 1824, " instead of
having this matter indicated to us by twelve or thirteen gentlemen who rep-
resent the city of New York in the Assembly, and one or two that may rep-
resent them in this body, we will say to the Common Council of that city,
selected by the people the chosen agents of the people that they may dis-
tribute this fund as they think proper ; and the question now-is, Have these
agents abused that power so as to make it requisite that the Legislature
should resume it ? " Sir, I submit, with great deference, whether, in this
matter, the onus of proof does not lie upon those who ask the Legislature to
resume it ? I submit if the burden of showing that there has been an
abuse of power that the agent has been an unfaithful agent does not
devolve upon those who desire to take the power" away ? Now, has it been
abused ? I ask, has the Corporation abused the power thus voluntarily
without any request on their part granted to them ? That is a question
which I now propose to discuss.

Immediately after the passage of this act, or as soon as, in the course of
public business, it could be attended to namely, on the llth of April, 1825
(for it was anterior to that that the committee was appointed) this matter
was taken up by the Common Council of the city of New York, it was
referred by them to the Law Committee, and this is the preamble to the
report made on the day above mentioned :

The Committee on Laws, to whom were referred the 4th section of the
act of the Legislature of this State relating to common schools in the city
of New York, passed the 19th of November, 1824 ; the memorials of the
trustees of the Charity School attached to the Reformed Protestant Dutch

SPEECH OF MK. KETCHUM. 38]

Church of the city of New York ; of the trustees of the First Protestant
Episcopal Charity School in the city of New York, and of the trustees of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, praying respectively for a participation in
the common school fund ; and also the report of a committee of the trus-
tees of the Free-School Society, on the distribution of the said fund, pro-
posing a change in the constitution of that Society, so as to admit children
of all classes to their schools, for a compensation not exceeding fifty cents
per quarter, with power to remit in proper cases, Report.

The committee consisted of Samuel Cowdrey, Elisha W. King, and
Thomas Bolton, Esqs.

They patiently heard all parties (continued Mr. Ketchum). I believe the,
hearing occupied one or two evenings. The Methodists were represented,
the Dutch were represented, the Episcopalians were represented, and the
Public School Board was represented. The whole matter was fully and frank-
ly discussed, and this principle : whether or not religious societies ought to
participate in this fund, was fully gone into ; and so far as the churches
were represented, and so far as my learned associate was concerned (the
Hon. Peter A. Jay), these various questions were discussed with great
ability.

The report of the Law Committee is long ; it sets forth the arguments
on both sides, and the conclusion contains the following passage :

In the performance of this duty, they have felt all the importance and
responsibility of the task assigned to them ; and while they would will-
ingly have retired from the appointment, and do each individually wish
that the Legislature had passed the necessary law on this subject, on the
recent application to them for that purpose, yet your committee cannot per-
mit themselves to hesitate or falter in the course of public duty, when that
course is plainly manifest to their understandings. Your committee will not
conceal either their own private and personal wishes, at the commencement
of their duties, that the well-organized churches and religious societies in
our city might be permitted to continue in the reception of a part of this
fund, as heretofore. But the weight of the argument as urged before them,
and which they have endeavored to condense in this report, and the estab-
lished constitutional and political doctrines which have a bearing on this
question, and the habits and modes of thinking of the constituents at large
of this board, require, in the opinion of your committee, that the common
school fund should be distributed for civil purposes only, as contradistin-
guished from those of a religious or sectarian description.

This report was adopted by the Common Council with entire unanimity,
it is believed.

That conclusion was ratified by their constituents ; and I believe that
every one of the religious societies, or nearly so, excepting the Roman Cath-
olics, acquiesced in that decision. But that society, year after year, has
come before the Common Council, and renewed their request for a separate
portion of the school fund. With the best feelings for the applicants, in a
spirit of kindness, with every disposition to do whatever could be done for
them, year after year, and without respect to politics, whether the one party
was in the ascendant or the other party was in the ascendant, the Common
Council have, with almost entire unanimity, disallowed that request ; and I
believe that never, in either board, since the division of that body into two

382 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

boards, has there been but one dissenting voice raised against the ratifica-
tion of that decision. Now, if the committee please, "who have complained ?
The Roman Catholics. . Our fellow-citizens, the Roman Catholics, are as
much entitled to be heard there, and here, as any other citizens; for, when
acting in a political capacity, we know no difference of religion. The re-
quest which was made and urged by them, conjoined with many powerful
Protestant sects and denominations of Christians, and which was refused to
them jointly, has been over and over again refused to them separately.

No disrespect was intended then. The Common Council, and every per-
son engaged in the discussion of the question on behalf of the Common
School Society, took great care to say, " "We do not reject you because you
are Roman Catholics ; and, as evidence of this truth, we give you the fact
that we have rejected similar applications from powerful Protestants ; but
we reject your request because we believe that a sound general principle will
not allow us to grant it."

I say, that the Corporation have been desirous, so far as that body possi-
bly could, so far as they felt themselves at liberty, consistently with the
maintenance of a sound general principle, to accommodate these parties.
They have granted a privilege out of this fund to the Roman Catholic de-
nomination, which has not been granted to any other. The Sisters of Char-
ity, so called, under direction of the Roman Catholic Church, and connected
with it (I believe I am right ; if not, I should be happy to be corrected),
established a most benevolent institution in the city of New York, called
the Orphan Asylum the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum. They took into
this institution poor and destitute orphans. They fed them and clothed
them most meritoriously, and they thus relieved the city of New York of
the maintenance of many who would otherwise, probably, have been a
charge upon it. After long discussion, and with some hesitancy, yet over-
come by the desire to oblige, and aware of the limitation arising from the
very nature of that institution, the Corporation did permit the Catholic
Orphan Asylum to receive money from this fund ; and, during the last year,
it received some 1,462 for the education of about one hundred and sixty-
five children in common with the Institution for the Blind, and the Deaf
and Dumb, and those other benevolent and Christian institutions which are
altogether of a Catholic character, in the most comprehensive acceptation
of that term, as they are under no sectarian influence or government. Thus
this society, under the direction of the Sisters of Charity* ladies devoted
to the Roman Catholic Church, who are themselves Roman Catholics, and
given up to the service of that Church this society, I say, has been permit-
ted to draw this sum of $1,462 in one year. But when the question came,
" Shall their schools be permitted to draw from the fund ? " the Corporation
had to say and they have said, over and over again, though most reluc-
tantly " We cannot grant you that." Upon the last application made for
this purpose, the subject underwent thorough and prolonged discussion
before the Board of Aldermen, and the argument was conducted, on the
side of the Roman Catholics, with signal ability, by the Right Rev. Bishop
Hughes, of that Church. The hall of the Common Council was crowded

SPEECH OF ME. KETCHUM. 383

to overflowing; the avenues were crowded, and crowded, I believe I may
say, without any intention of saying what is erroneous, by persons belong-
ing to that denomination.

The subject, I repeat, underwent a very full and free discussion ; and,
after that had terminated, the Board of Aldermen gravely considered and
discussed the 'subject, and at length, after some delay, came to the conclu-
sion that they would go and visit the schools. Some of the members of the
Board of Public Schools, feeling sensibly alive on the subject, expressed to
me an apprehension that this was a mere evasion, and they feared that the
question had now become mingled with politics. But I said, " Wait, gen-
tlemen ; let them go and see your schools ; it is a natural desire. They
ought to go. It is a great and delicate question, and they ought to be ac-
quainted with it in all its details." They went and visited the public
schools and the Roman Catholic schools, and they incorporated the result of
their deliberations in a report which I have before me, and from which I
shall quote by and by. It is drawn up with great ability, and the decision
was, with but one dissenting voice, that the prayer of the petition should
be rejected ; and it was. rejected. Who, then, complain of the operation of
this system ? Our fellow-citizens, the Roman Catholics. Failing to accom-
plish their purpose through the Common Council of the city of New York,
they come and ask it here. Failing in their application to a body of repre-
sentatives to whom they have applied year after year, and who represent a
population in which is intermingled a greater mass of Roman Catholic
voters than in any other district of the State of New York failing to get,
from the hands of a body thus constituted, the redress for the grievance
which, they complained of, they come here and ask it of you. 1 say, they
come here, because I will presently show you, from their memorials, that
none J>ut they come here.

Now, I beg leave again to refer to the report of the Secretary. He says :

The memorials presented at the present session represent that the legisla-
tive enactments on the subject of public instruction, in the city of New
York, require a fundamental alteration to bring the benefits of the common
school education within the reach of all classes of the population ; that the
original intent of those enactments was to enable every school, which should
comply with the law, to share in the common school fund ; that this design
has been defeated by the construction put upon the statutes by the Common
Council of the city, in designating the Public School Society to receive
nearly the whole amount of that fuud belonging to the city ; that this Soci-
ety, being a corporation, has acquired the entire control of the system of
public education ; that the taxpayers who contribute to the fund have no
voice in the selection of those who administer the system, or control over
the application of the public moneys.

That is to say (continued Mr. Ketchum), that, at the last session, memo-
rials were presented by the Roman Catholics, as such. The present, we are
left to infer, are presented by citizens generally, not as Roman Catholics.
Let us see how the truth of the matter stands. Here is the first memorial :

To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York :

The memorial of the undersigned, residents of the city of New York,

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

respectfully showeth : That yonr memorialists, being members of the Catho-
lic Church, and connected with the several Catholic congregations in the
city of New York, would respectfully represent to your honorable body, &c.

This (continued Mr. Ketchum) is from the first memorial presented by
them as Catholics. It was presented in the session of 1840, and referred to
the honorable Secretary last year. He did not think prop'er to make a
report upon that ; but then comes a second memorial from citizens generally,
and on that he makes a report. The second is a memorial presented the
22d of February, 1841. It says :

That your memorialists are deeply interested in extending the advan-
tages of education to every child in the commonwealth, regarding it as the
best means of perpetuating the blessings of our republican institutions, and
of correcting those evils in society which are beyond the sphere of legisla-
tion.

It is alleged by thousands of our population, that their conscientious
scruples have been disregarded in the formation of the system of instruction
adopted by the Public School Society. The confidence of this class of our
citizens has been entirely withdrawn from the institution, and they com-
plain of the severity of the oppression which compels them to submit to
the decision and government of agents irresponsible to the public, and in
whose appointment the electors are not permitted to participate, &c.

Among the first signatures to this memorial (remarked Mr. Ketchum) are
those of Joseph O'Connor, James. B. O'Donnell, Patrick Leach, and others.
I never saw this memorial until this morning, but I perceive one name
attached to it, as a sort of family name PATRICK FARRELL three times in
succession ; and, what is very singular, the handwriting seems to be very
much alike. Be that as it may, I am satisfied, from what I have seen, that
this is as much a memorial from Roman Catholics as the other was. The
Secretary, in his report, in the passage which I have read, admits that the
first memorial came in a shape not calculated, probably, to be very impres-
sive. He says :

At the last session, memorials of a similar character from a large number
of Roman Catholics, citizens of New York, were referred to the undersigned,
upon which he was unable, during that session, to report. Although these
petitioners have the same equal and common rights, with all other citizens,
to submit their grievances to the Legislature and ask for redress, yet the
circumstance of presenting themselves in a character of a religious denomi-
nation is, in itself, unfavorable to that impartial consideration of the subject
which its importance demands.

Probably (continued Mr. Ketchum) that circumstance was discovered by
the Secretary's sagacity, between 1840 and 1841 ; and this second memorial,
therefore, is from citizens of New York. But I believe I may safely affirm
that, if not exclusively, it is almost altogether signed by Roman Catholics.
As the Secretary justly remarks, however, they have a righ 4 : to apply here ;
they have a right to ask the Legislature to overrule the decision of the Cor-
poration, although it may be supposed that in that Corporation they would
have as fair a chance of being heard, and of having the merits of the con-
troversy rightly adjudicated, as here; still, they have the right to come.

SPEECH OF MR. KETCH UM. 385

Now, what do they complain of? One of their complaints is, that the peo-
ple are not represented in this Public School Society ; that here is an agency
used for a great public purpose which the people do not directly choose ;
and they complain of the Public School Society being a close corporation.

I suppose that, if the Corporation had granted the prayer of their me-
morial, to allow their societies that is to say, St. Patrick's Church, and all
such churches as belong to the Roman Catholic denomination in the city of
New York to participate in this fund, I suppose they would not have seen
precisely that such great evils and dangers to liberty were to be apprehend-
ed from the distribution of the funds to these churches and the Public-
School Society. I think it fair to conjecture, that if thek corporations, be
they close or be they open,' could have participated in that fund, we, should
not have heard any thing of their extreme regard for the liberties of the
people. But, no mattes whether we should or should not r they have a right
to be heard, whatever their motives may be ; no matter what might have
deterred them from coming here, they have a right to be heard, and their
arguments must be met and answered here, or else they must receive the
action of the Legislature in their favor. All that I admit. But what is
their complaint ? As will appear by these memorials, and from the sum-
mary contained in the report of the Secretary, they complain that this
money is paid to a close corporation that the religious scruples of a large
portion of our fellow-citizens are violated by this distribution of funds.

Now, I wish to call the attention of the committee to the fact now to be
stated : there is no complaint in these memorials, nor will you hear any from
any source, that the Public School Society does not furnish, to all the chil-
dren who attend their schools, a good literary education ; there is no com-
plaint that, in these schools, children are not taught to read, write, and
cipher ; that they are not taught the elements of geography, astronomy,
and of English grammar, as well as they could be taught. There is, I say,
no complaint of that description ; and, with the exception of complaints
about the tendencies of the institution, there are no complaints against its
actual operation ; but the complaint is, that some of the citizens cannot,
from conscientious scruples, send their children to these schools. Now, I
invite the particular attention ef the committee to this, which I deem most
important : that, whatever may be said of the tendencies of these institu-
tions, whatever may be said of the evil of the general principle contained in
the alleged fact that these agents are not chosen directly by the people, nor
responsible to them, yet, in the long lapse of thirty-five years of the opera-
tion of this Society, and from the year 1813 to the present time, during
which these common school moneys have been received, there is no com-
plaint that they have ever failed to give a good education. There is no com-
plaint that the system has so far operated injuriously, excepting that such
is the course of religious education, or, more properly speaking, the want of
religious education, that the Roman Catholics cannot conscientiously send
their children to our schools. But they do object that they cannot send
their children to these schools ; that those children, many of them eminent-

386 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ly the subjects of a gratuitous education, cannot partake of the benefits of
the fund on account of conscientious scruples.

Now, this is the very point which, year after year, has been discussed
before the Common Council, and which, year after year, has been decided
by that body. What is it ? The Roman Catholics complain, in the first
place, that they cannot conscientiously send their children to the public
schools because we do not give religious instruction in a definite form and
of a decided and definite character. They complain, in the second place,
that the school-books in common use in the Society contain passages reflect-
ing upon the Roman Catholic Church. And they complain, in the third
place, that we use the Bible without note or comment ; that the school is
opened in the morning by calling the children to order and reading a chap-
ter in the Bible our common version. These are the three grounds on
which they base their conscientious scruples. Now f I propose most respect-
fully to consider them. In the first place, our books contain occasional pas-
sages reflecting on the Roman Catholics. It is true that, in our ordinary
school-books, the most approved of the day, there is an occasional passage
which may be considered as reflecting injuriously on the Roman Catholic
Church. We have all read, I suppose, as children and I do not know but
that this description may be one of those contained in these books of the
martyrdom of John Rogers, in the reign of Queen Mary. That reflects on
the Roman Catholic Church ; and there is an occasional passage which
speaks of the Roman Catholic Church as Protestant divines, essayists, and
orators sometimes allow themselves to speak of that Church. The Public
School Society have offered, if the Catholics will point out these offensive
passages, to erase them all from the books. They have said to the bishop
of that Church, and to a committee of that Church, " We can find passages
enough of good English for our reading-books without these ; and if you
will have the goodness to take these books and point out these offensive
passages, we pledge ourselves to have them erased."

Now, all this matter was gone into by the intelligent committee of the
Board of Aldermen to whose action I have referred and I have their report
before me. They called for a distinct and definite proposition from the
Common School Society as to what they would do. I will read a few pas-
sages from the report :

PBOPOSITIOX ON BEHALF OP THE SCHOOL SOCIETY.

They will also exclude from the school libraries (the use of which is per-
mitted to the pupils, but not required of them) every work written with a

SPEECH OF MR. KETOHUM. 387

view to prejudice the mind of the reader against the tenets or practices of
the Roman Catholic Church, or the general tendency of which is to produce
the same effect.

Anxious to keep open every avenue to such an arrangement as will lead
to a general attendance of the Roman Catholic children at the public
schools, and fully aware that some things may have escaped their observa-
tion which might be modified without violation of the conscientious rights
of others, the undersigned wish it to be distinctly understood that, in offer-
ing the foregoing propositions as the basis of an arrangement, it is not in-
tended to exclude -other propositions which the Roman Catholics may make,
provided they do not interfere with the principles by which the trustees feel
themselves bound.

This portion of the report (said Mr. Ketchum), as will be seen, has reter-
ence to these offensive passages. Now, every body will say that is a fair
offer we will strike them out. But, gentlemen of the committee, I submit
whether here, in this country, we must not, in matters of conflicting opin-
ions, give and take a little ? I have no doubt that I can find something in
any public school-book, of much length, and containing much variety of
matter, reflecting upon the Methodists upon the heated zeal, probably, of
John Wesley, and his followers ; reflecting upon the Episcopalians, the Bap-
tists, and Presbyterians. Occasional sentences will find their way into pub-
lic discourses, which, if viewed critically, and regarded in a captious spirit,
rather reflect upon the doctrines of all those churches.

Now, I submit, with great deference to the committee, whether this is a
fair subject for conscientious scruples ? As I have had occasion to illustrate
heretofore, we find something in relation to politics, too, about which we
may disagree. There are some very elegant passages from Thomas Jeffer-
son's works which have found their way into our public school-books.
Some man, imbued with strong prejudices against Thomas Jefferson, may
say, " I cannot go Thomas Jefferson ; my children shall never be instructed
to read what Thomas Jefferson has said." On the other hand, there are
many passages from the speeches of Mr. Webster which have found their
way into school-books ; and a Democrat may say, " I cannot go Mr. Web-
ster ; my children shall not be taught to admire him." And thus, if we are

388 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

captious, we can find conscientious scruples enough. However, if it is bond
fde a conscientious scruple, tbere is the end of it ; we cannot reason with it.
But, in the judgment of the Common Council, and as I think must be the
case in the judgment of every man, the difficulty is got over by the proposi-
tion which has been made.

The next complaint is, that we do not give religious education enough.
The memorials, all of which are public and the speeches and documents
which have been employed, and which, if necessary, can be furnished to the
committee all go conclusively to demonstrate that, in the judgment of those
who spoke for the Roman Catholic Church, we ought to teach religion in
our public schools not generally, not vaguely, not the general truths of
religion, but that specific religious instruction must be given. Now, I
hardly suppose that this deficiency can be made the subject of conscientious
objection.

The third and last complaint is, that our Catholic brethren cannot con-
sent to have this Bible read in the hearing of their children. Now, on
every one of these points the trustees have been disposed to go as far as
they possibly could in the way of accommodation ; but they never yet con-
sented to give up the use of the Bible to the extent to which it is used in
the schools. I say, the trustees have never yet consented to this surrender.
But if they can have good authority for doing it, they will do it.

If this Legislature, by its own act, will direct that the Bible shall be. ex-
cluded, I will guarantee that it shall be excluded. Thus much for these
conscientious scruples ; and, having these scruples, the Roman Catholics say
they cannot come in. They, however, are in favor of this bill, the outline
of which is given in the report of the Secretary. They are here, from the
Catholic Board of Trustees, in strong force, to aid the passage of some bill
founded on the Secretary's report. They will be satisfied with it ; it will
give them what they ask. Now, let us see how. There is no proposition
contained in this report, that religious societies, as such, shall participate in
this fund none. It is too late in the day for any man to make that propo-
sition. Anxious as the Secretary is to accommodate this matter, he does
not say that religious societies shall participate in the fund. But what does
he say ? He says that the trustees of districts shall indicate what religion
shall be taught in those schools. That is to say, that you shall have small
masses ; that these small masses shall elect their trustees ; and as the major-
ity of the people in those small masses may direct, so shall be the character
of the religious instruction imparted. He assumes that there must be reli-
gious instruction in the schools ; that, although the law makes no provision
for it, yet that it is left practically with the people themselves, through their
trustees, to indicate the religious instruction that shall be given. I will read
what the Secretary says, at page 11 of his report :

It is by adopting the principle of the organization that prevails in the
other parts of the State, which will leave such parents as desire to exercise
any control over the amount and description of religious instruction which
shall be given to their children, the opportunity of doing so.

Now (continued Mr. Ketchum), let us see how the argument stands. The

SPEECH OF MK. KETCHUM. 389

complainants here are the Roman Catholics. They cannot conscientiously
have their children taught in these schools, because religious instruction, in a
definite form, is not given, and because the Bible is read. But when a
school is formed in the Sixth "Ward of the city of New York, in which
ward (for the sake of the argument we will assume) the Roman Catholics
have a majority in the district, they choose their trustees, and these trustees
indicate that a specific form of religion to wit, the Roman Catholic reli-
gion shall be taught in that school ; that mass shall be said there, and that
the children shall cross themselves with holy water in the school, having the
right to do so according to this report, the Catholics being in a majority
there. Then, and not till then, can these Roman Catholics conscientiously
send their children to school. That is to say, their objections to this system
are to be overcome by having a school to which they can conscientiously
send their children ; and that school must be one in which religion is to be
taught according to their particular views. Now, suppose that, in any given
district, there should be about five hundred Roman Catholic children, and
two hundred Protestant children. These Protestant children are compelled
to worship according to the opinions of the majority ; that is to say, they
are compelled to be taught religion according to the doctrines of the Roman
Catholic Church. I ask you, gentlemen, if that is not the tyranny of the
majority ? The Secretary admits that a majority of the people, in a given
district, has a right to indicate what religion shall be taught in the district
school ; and to that religion, or that form, whatever it may be, the minority
must submit. Thus, in a given district, the Protestant shall be taxed for
the support of the Roman Catholic religion ; or, on the other hand, the
Roman Catholics shall be taxed for the support of definite Protestant reli-
gion ; and thus, by abandoning the present system, we are to form and cre-
ate a system which will overcome the difficulty. Is this reasoning like an
American statesman ?

I deny the Secretary's proposition. I affirm that it is false and erroneous
from beginning to end. This school fund can never, under any circum-
stances, be made use of or employed in teaching the particular doctrines or
particular dogmas of any religious denomination. If there were five hun-
dred in one district, and but one man in that district that protested, he
would have a clear right to do so. He has a right to say, " I will not pay
my money to teach the Roman Catholic religion ; I will not pay my money
to teach the Protestant religion ; I will not pay my money to teach the
doctrines of Tom Paine ; I will not pay my money to teach the doctrine of
those who affirm that my Saviour was an impostor." Imagine a district in
the city of New York where there is a majority of persons of this descrip-
tion, and where they shall teach their own doctrines (for, if the Secretary is
right, these, being in the majority, have a right to teach what religion they
please). I am supposing an extreme but possible case. Is this the scheme
by which we are to get over the objections of those who alone complain of
this system ? No, sir. I affirm that the religion taught in the public
schools is precisely that quantity of religion which we have a right to teach.
It would be inconsistent with public sentiment to teach less ; it would be

390 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

illegal to teach more. And, on this point, I am happy to see that the Secre-
tary has one passage in his report which expresses my views most fully, and
which is couched in much better language than any which I could employ.
He says :

It is very true that the Government has assumed only the intellectual
education of the children of the State, and has left their moral and religious
instruction to be given at the fireside, at the places of public worship, and
at those institutions which the piety of individuals may establish for the
purpose. But it is believed that, in a country where the great body of our
fellow-citizens recognize the fundamental truths of Christianity, public senti-
ment would be shocked by the attempt to exclude all instruction of a reli-
gious nature from the public schools : and that any plan or scheme of educa-
tion, in which no reference whatever was had to moral principles founded
on these truths, would be abandoned by all. In the next place, it is be-
lieved such an attempt would be wholly impracticable. No books can be
found, no reading-lessons can be selected, which do not contain more or less
of some principles of religious faith, either directly avowed, or indirectly
assumed. Religion and literature have become inseparably interwoven, and
the expurgation of religious sentiments from the productions of orators,
essayists, and poets, would leave them utterly barren.

Now (continued Mr. Ketchum), we have a right to say this. When the
lute head of this nation (so suddenly, under the providence of God, taken
from us) declared, as others, his predecessors, had declared before him, that
he bore his testimony in favor of the Christian religion as received in this
land, he spoke as the representative of the American people. I am proud to
say here, as an American, that there is no party in that; that, whatever
difference of opinion might have existed politically as to the merits of that
distinguished man, the sentiment thus uttered by him was an American
sentiment, which will be responded to by a vast majority of the people of
this country for, thank God, this is a Christian land.

"We belong to different denominations ; indeed, we are Episcopalians, we
are Roman Catholics, we are Baptists, we are Methodists; but there are
great truths of Christianity which, as a people, we coincide in. And
although the law cannot point out precisely what those principles are, yet
we can all feel them and judge of them. We have a right to teach our chil-
dren, as we do teach them, that there is a God whose eye sees us who
penetrates the thoughts of our hearts and that we are accountable beings.
We have a right to inculcate these great religious principles, as the sanctions
of that morality which we are bound to see enforced in these schools. The
Legislature has nothing to do with religion specifically ; but so far as, by
common consent, religion mingles itself with the approved literature of the
country, and so far as it deals with great general principles from which
morality derives its sanctions, the Legislature, and the schools, and every
one under the patronage of this Government, has a right to recognize it.

Beyond that, 110 such right exists ; because, the moment you go beyond
that, you trample upon the conscience of this or that man, whose conscience
you are bound to respect. But these general principles, as properly stated
here, must be recognized, and are recognized, in this land. In the schools
we go thus far : we neither say nor do any thing to interfere with the pecu-

SPEECH OF ME. KETCH DM. 391

liar sentiments of any sect or denomination. Our trustees are, and always
have been, composed of persons of all denominations. We Lave had, in
our number, more than one excellent Roman Catholic, from time to time.
We have had Episcopalians, we have had Baptists, we have had Universal-
ists, we have had respectable men of all sects men who are willing to de-
vote themselves, without fee or reward, to the service of their fellow-men.
Precisely that amount of religion which would be approved and taught by
a board thus constituted that, I say, and these general truths only, have we
a right to teach in institutions under the direction of the Legislature.

The next objection to this system, as a system and this is not an objec-
tion to existing schools is, that it does not reach all the children who are
the proper subjects of a gratuitous education. And here I will take leave
to read an extract from the report of the Secretary. He says :

Now (continued Mr. Ketchum), I grant most freely that, if there is this
number of children in the city of New York who do not attend the schools
on account of the defects in the system, the system ought to be either
amended or improved, or, if not susceptible of amendment, abolished, and a
new system substituted. But let us for a moment inquire into this matter.
There is some mistake in this census calculation. There must necessarily be
a mistake, because it makes out the number of 32,194 children who are not
in attendance on any school whatever. We report the number of children
on our books for the last year at 23,000 ; and it is stated by the Eoman
Catholics that there are about 8,000 in their schools ; making an aggregate
of 31,000 in the public and Roman Catholic schools. Deduct this from the
aggregate census number, and the number remaining is 31,952. From this
number no deduction is made for the children attending pay schools in the
city; this number is large in the ward in which I reside (7th). I have
heard a computation made, that there are over one thousand pay scholars in
this single ward ; although this is more than the average in all the wards.
There must, therefore, be some mistake ; the fact cannot be as it is here
represented. I doubt whether the persons who took the census were re-
markably accurate or particular in obtaining information respecting the
attendance of children on schools.

Error there manifestly is, somewhere. Upon a given day many children
may not have been at school. There may have been a vast number of these

392 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

children actually attending .school, and yet who were absent on that particu-
lar day.

The difference between the number of those who actually attend our
schools and the number on the register, is twenty per cent. ; that is to say,
twenty children out of one hundred do not attend the schools daily. These
children may be taken from school by their parents for various reasons :
they may be wanted, in the season, to sell radishes, or for one operation or
another, by which their parents can realize a little profit from their labor ;
and thus, at a given time, there may not be more than two-thirds of the
twenty-three thousand children above named in actual attendance. If, then,
the inquiry is made on a given day, What is the number of children who go
to school to-day ? the answer would be given in that form ; and, therefore,
you cannot thus arrive at just conclusions as to how many children are edu-
cated, and how many are left uneducated. The inquiry is supposed to be,
How many children attend school ? Many parents will not send their chil-
dren when under six years ; and, after that age, many of them are not kept
at school more than three or four years. By the time they are ten or twelve
years old, they will have acquired a knowledge of reading, writing, and
ciphering, and other branches of education which, their parents think, is
all that is needed to prepare them for some employment. Therefore there
may be many children between five and six not sent to school ; and there
are many between that age and the age of ten or twelve, who have received
what is supposed by their friends to be a competent education ; and a fast
number between 12 and 16 are taken out, because, before the latter age, they
can be made the instruments of profit to their parents. So that, in this
calculation, you do not arrive at a result which shows you the number of
children actually left uneducated. It is difficult to decide this point. The
Public School Society made an investigation into the subject, with a view
of making an application to the people for an additional tax : ,this, I think,
was in the year 1829, when the population of the city of New York was
about two hundred thousand. They made the investigation in the best
manner they could, and arrived at the conclusion that there were about ten
thousand children in the city who did not attend school.

The chairman of the committee here made the following inquiry :

In these 33,000 thus returned, are there any returns of children at select
schools, or boarding-schools ?

Mr. KETCHUM. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. The number, then, includes those who are returned
from your Society, and are returned from other societies.

Question by Mr. VERPLAKCK. In this 23,000 who are educated at the
public schools in New York, are not children of ages between four and five
years included ?

Mr. KETCHUM. The city of New York limits the age of children to
between four and sixteen.

Mr. VERPLANCK. Therefore there must be a number of children under
five years not educated.

SPEECH OF ME. KETCHUM. . 393

Mr. KETCHUM here stated that there was a gentleman present (Mr. Seton)
who had in his possession all the statistical information requisite to answer
any inquiries that might be put. That gentleman had long been a visitor
engaged in the service of these schools. He was more, intimately acquainted
with all the details than he (Mr. Ketchum) could be, and would be happy
to answer all inquiries. He had, indeed, come here for that purpose.
Mr. Ketchum then proceeded in his argument, as follows :
Well, now, here is shown to be a large non-attendance. There is no
doubt of the i'act ; we cannot deny it, and we do not wish to deny it. But
does this non-attendance result from this system ? I say not. There is no
non-attendance, save from the children of our Roman Catholic fellow-citi-
zens, that can be pointed out on account of prejudice against the schools.
There is non-attendance, as you will be told by gentlemen of great practical
knowledge on the subject, because parents will not send their children to
school, or because the children will not go. There is a want of parental
authority which leaves the children to say they will not go, and hence they
grow up in idle and vagrant habits. They would not go to any other
school sooner than to this. The objection is not to the school itself, but to
the confinement. They will not go to school, and they cannot be made to
go. What can we do ? The gentleman upon my left (Mr. Seton) was em-
ployed many years in visiting in going round from house to. house, for the
purpose of inducing children to come in. We have now thirteen gentlemen
employed to visit one day in each week, from house to house, to induce and
persuade these children to come in to overcome objections, and to get them
in. That matter is under the charge of a committee, of the board, and the
result of their experience has been given. I believe that their exertions,
during the last year, were the means of getting in about nine hundred chil-
dren ; but of this number, from the want of parental control, a small por-
tion only remained more than a short time. Now, what system could bring
in these children to a greater extent ? There is no prejudice against the
schools : there cannot be any. No one w.ho visits the schools, and who
observes the cheerfulness and the happiness which there prevails, can fail to
see that there is not any ground of prejudice. You cannot have more
attractive schools than these. But the great difficulty is, that the children
will not be persuaded to come. Nothing but legal provision can make
them, and, proba'bly, we are not^ prepared for a resort to force. But our
Common Council have been very accommodating on this subject ; they have
gone hand in hand with the Public School Society ; they have acted on the
most friendly terms, and, on one occasion, they passed an ordinance (how
long it remained in force I cannot say), providing that parents who did not
send their children to some school should not receive bounty, in the winter
season, from the Almshouse. That mode Tuts been resorted to. There has
been perfect cooperation between the two bodies; yet, notwithstanding thig,
and all other attempts, there are children whom we could accommodate, and
who do not come ; but I am bound to say, that our accommodations in
some parts of the city are not such as will allow all to partake of the bene-
fits of the schools. That is no fault in the system, but arises from the fact

394 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

that the system itself is not carried out to the extent it ought to be. I
believe that the trustees of the Society have asked the Legislature to help
them to funds, to enable them to build additional school-houses. Our great
difficulty arises from the cost of school-houses and the purchase of lots ; for,
as you, gentlemen, well know, there is a great difference between the cost
of a lot of land in the city and a lot in the country.

The amount of money which would be required in the city of New
York, for the purchase of a lot, or lots, of land proper for the erection of a
building (to be three stories high, with a basement), which would accom-
modate our children under the Lancasterian system, and in which five or six
hundred are educated, would be as much as all the school-houses in a single
county, and the lots, too, would cost in the country. The great difficulty
lies in getting the money. "We have asked aid, and we shall undoubtedly
have to ask aid again, to enable us to build school-houses. In this way we
could accommodate more children, and could get more to attend. But this,
gentlemen will at once perceive, is not the fault of the system, but results
from the fact that we are not able to carry it out to the extent necessary. I
have not considered this last point as fully as I could otherwise have wished,
because the figures and statements of those who are personally acquainted
with it will be at the service of the committee ; and the committee will no
doubt prefer to have the information directly from that source. I have thus
considered the objections, not to the principle, but to the actual operation
of this system.

I come, now, to consider the objections to the principles as set forth in
these memorials. What are they ? They represent, in the first place, that
the original intention of the enactment which gave this fund to the Com-
mon Council, was, " to enable every school which should comply with the
requirements of the statute to share in the common school fund."

That is an assertion from which, as a matter of fact, I dissent. I have
said before, I was here at the time the act was passed. Gentlemen of the
committee can only judge of the intention from the act itself; but I believe
I know pretty well what the intention of the Legislature was on the points
that were mooted ; and I am persuaded that the Legislature intended to
give full power to the Corporation of the city of New York to distribute
this money among such institutions as they should select. The Corporation
had the right to adopt or reject any of these institutions.

The memorialists say that " it is dangerous and detrimental to the public
interest to pour into the coffers of this institution the public money, or its
influence and authority, while it is wanting in that high and requisite attri-
bute of a public agent responsibility to the people."

Now, I admit that, although no evils have yet, in practice, resulted from
the operations of this Society ; although the evil tendencies which are
charged upon it have not, after a lapse of thirty years, developed them-
selves, yet, if the mode of employing the school fund contains within itself
a principle which is unsound, which is inconsistent with our institutions,
which is inconsistent with the spirit of the law and the Constitution under
which we live, I admit that the Legislature is bound to correct that princi-

SPEECH OF MB. KETCIIUM. 305

pie. It is stated here, that nearly the whole education of the poor of the
city of New York is under the control of this Society. I refer to page 1 of
the Secretary's report, where it is said (as part of the substance of the me-
morials) :

That this Society, being a corporation, has acquired the entire control of
the system of public education ; that the taxpayers, who contribute to the
fund, have no voice in the selection of those who administer the system, or
control over the application of the public moneys.

And, at page 11, the Secretary says :

The practical operation of the school laws is, to constitute the trustees
of the Public School Society the officers and agents of the Government in
the administration of the system of primary instruction in that city. That
Society, in effect, engrosses the public education of the city ; and, instead
of operating on small masses, as in the interior, embraces the whole.

Now, let us consider these assertions. Is it true that, in the proper sense
of the term, all education in the city of New York is under the control of
the Public School Society? How from what source does the Public
School Society receive the funds by which alone they maintain these schools
from day to day ? From the hands of the Corporation of the city of New
York from the hands of the representatives of the people chosen at the
ballot-boxes. They have a right to indicate the institution and the schools
that shall receive this fund, and to impose what restrictions they please.
This Public School Society receives its daily sustenance from the representa-
tives of the people ; and the moment that sustenance is withdrawn, it dies
it cannot carry on its operations for a day.

How is this matter guarded ? Here is a Corporation chosen by the peo-
ple. The law provides that this Corporation shall appoint one school com-
missioner for each ward, upon whom it imposes the duty of visiting, exam-
ining, and inspecting every one of the schools participating in the school
fund. It is made their duty, twice at least in a year, to visit the schools ;
and it is also made their duty to report to the Corporation ; and the Society
is bound yearly to report to the Corporation and to the Legislature. The
members of the Corporation themselves are ex-officio members of the Soci-
ety, and the Mayor and Recorder are ex-officio members of the Board of
Trustees. This Society or corporation, called the Public School Society, is
the almoner of this public bounty ; for although it was originally designed
for those who were the proper subjects of a gratuitous education exclusive-
ly, yet it is not now thus restricted. But now, those who participate in this
fund are mainly such as are the proper subjects of gratuitous education.
These agents of the people first, the Corporation, and, secondly, the School
Commissioners are to supervise and direct and control and give daily
bread to the Public School Society, whom they make their almoners to do
this work under their eye. Now, what sound principle is violated here ?
What principle of republicanism dear to the heart of any man is violated
by this ?

Here are agents of the people men who, having a desire to serve man-
kind, associate together ; they offer to take the superintendence of particu-

396 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

lar works ; they offer themselves to the public as agents to carry out certain
benevolent purposes ; and, instead of paying men for the labor, they volun-
teer to do it for you, " without money and without price," under your direc-
tions to do it as your servants, and to give an account to you and an
account to the Legislature. Again, then, I ask, what principle is violated ?
Mr. Chairman, voluntary public service is always more efficient than labor
done by servants chosen in any other way. I resort to the experience of this
Society, and to the experience of all other kindred societies, to demonstrate
the truth of this assertion ; and I say that all that experience will demon-
strate, that public objects are better accomplished by these voluntary ser-
vants, than they are usually accomplished by persons chosen directly by the
people ; not, however, independent of the people far otherwise ; but
agents acting as the voluntary servants of the people, under the direction
of the people, for the accomplishment of objects dear to the people. The
Secretary tells you that, since the year 1813, there has been expended the
sum of one million of dollars. If the fact is so and I have no doubt that
the Secretary states it upon authority he should have accompanied it with
the information that, in the expenditure of this money, not a single cent has
been found deficient. He ought to have stated and would, I have no
doubt, if it had occurred to him at the moment, when he paraded here, or
stated here, this sum of one million dollars which the Society had expended
since the year 1813 he ought, I say, to have added that, like faithful ser-
vants, the Society had accounted for every cent ; because the reports on the
files in his own office will show that such an account has been given. Now,
Mr. Chairman, I submit that the real question which, as citizens, we ought
to discuss, is, not what prejudice we shall appeal to on this side or that, but
in what way will you have a great public duty performed in the best man-
ner ? Will you have it done by volunteers, who, from the experience of
thirty years, have proved themselves faithful, honest, and efficient, and who,
during the last year, according to a report now on the files, themselves vis-
ited the schools eleven thousand times ? Point out to me your school com-
missioners who, receiving pay, have done such service. Again, I ask, is not
the question really, how you will have this duty best performed ? In sparse
populations, most men are occupied, and cannot volunteer for a service of
this kind ; they have not the leisure ; it is too troublesome ; but in large
cities in this city, probably, and in the city of New York there always
will be a class of men having leisure, and full of benevolent feelings, who
may not wish to mingle in the contests of politics or of public life, in any
manner, but who desire to devote themselves to some good and benevolent
object that may be effective, and in a quiet way accomplish something for
the benefit of mankind. Will you, as wise men, say we shall avail ourselves
of these voluntary services, or shall we mingle every thing in the turmoil of
politics ? Will you say, that every thing shall be discussed on party princi-
ples ? and will you have the question discussed at the polls, whether this
man or that man is a Whig or a Democrat, so that the trustees may be cho-
sen according to their politics ? It has not yet come to that here ; but in
Philadelphia, I am informed, party politics have reached the superintendents

SPEECH OF ME. KETCHUM. 307

of common schools ; and, by and by, the politics of the teachers "will be
inquired into before they can be elected. Do you desire to bring every
thing within this angry vortex ? Is it wise ? Is it judicious ? Is it consci-
entious ? Can we not let this " well enough " alone ?

. Why, I ask, when you can avail yourselves of such services when there
are men who love to serve you in this way, why will you not accept their
services ? Is there any clanger to democratic principles in this ? What is
your Hospital, but a corporation acting as almoners of charity ? What is
your House of Refuge ? I can speak understandingly about it, for I was
connected with, and of it, from the start. Benevolent men looked abroad
over that great city, and saw children taken up for crimes, associated with'
felons, and there joined with the school of vice, to be made perfect in its
tortuous ways, without redemption or hope of redemption. Their hearts
bled over the spectacle, and they met together and consulted as to what
could be done. They held a public meeting and took up a subscription,
amounting, on that night only, to the sum of sixteen hundred dollars. In
less than three months, this sum of sixteen hundred dollars was increased,
by voluntary contributions, to the sum of sixteeen thousand. And then,
what did they say ? " We cannot get on with this matter ; we cannot carry
out our benevolent object of taking these young culprits, who, if left to the
law, are certain to occupy our bridewells and our houses of correction ; we
cannot do any thing for them without corporate powers; and we must,
therefore, ask the Legislature to give us a part of the sovereign power of
the State."

We came to the Legislature, and the Legislature gave us a part of the
sovereign power. They are now a corporation of which, if any of you were
in a foreign land, you would be proud and happy to boast. It is one of the
jewels of the country. It has gone on ; it has received the bounty of this
Legislature ; it has received from it its daily bread and support, and yet the
directors are not chosen by the people. They are chosen by their associates,
and experience proves that it is a good mode of carrying out the contem-
plated objects ; and yet, if we are to have this doctrine all at once estab-
lished, that nothing is consistent with republicanism or democracy that does
not come directly from the people, the House of Refuge must be destroyed ;
we must next have the schoolmaster elected by the people. Sir, let us act
like men of sense. We must use the advantages we have, and keep our eye
steadily upon the great end we have in view to wit, the amelioration of
society, the education of the children of the State ; and it is surely wise to
employ the ttest means we have for the accomplishment of this object.

Look at the Institution for the Blind ; look at the Institution for the
Deaf and Dumb. The name is legion of those associations and corpora-
tions, composed of philanthropic individuals, to which a part of the power
of the people is granted. I would not enter the arena here to declaim
against or to advocate corporations. I have nothing to say about moneyed
corporations ; I have nothing to say as to the cry against those corporations,
whether it is right or wrong. That is not the question ; but I am here to
contend that men have the right, and that it is their duty, to associate to-

398 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

gether, and that, if they cannot carry out the objects of their association
without corporate powers, it is wise and proper that the Legislature should
impart those powers. Your churches, your every thing which comforts, and
heals, and blesses the land, are in this sense corporations, and the Public
School Society is among the number.

But it is said that one million of dollars have been expended. Well,
now, in speaking of the manner in which this money has been appropriated,
the Secretary might have shown, if he had inquired or looked into the
reports, that about three hundred thousand dollars of the amount is in
property now held for the purposes of common school education, consisting
of buildings and other property, in real and personal estate. It may be
said that it is dangerous for a corporation like this to hold a large amount
of property. If the committee please, this is a danger of which the Society
has been sensible, and, years ago (as the record on their minutes will show),
they offered to deed all this property to the Common Council, and to take a
lease from them, to use it for special purposes of education. The Society is
willing at this moment to execute such a deed ; but the Corporation of the
city of New York have uniformly said : " Gentlemen, you manage your
property better than we manage ours. We have business enough. Keep
it." We have pressed the matter upon them. It is now an offer before
them, which they can accept at any time. But the confidence which that
Corporation, from year to year, and without respect to the politics of the
members composing it, has had in this institution, has induced them not to
accept the offer. And I am here on the part of the Society to say, that they
are willing to submit to any legislation or restriction upon this subject
which, upon consultation, shall be deemed wise and beneficial, and calcu-
lated to promote and secure the grand object of universal common school
education. This is a matter about which there can be no difficulty ; and if
the Secretary of State, or if this committee, will sit down with a committee
of the board, and regulate this matter, it can be pu{ in the same shape
(whatever that may be and I do not precisely know what it is) as the asy-
lum for the blind, the asylum for the insane, or any other institution having
buildings or property, toward the purchase or erection of which the State
has contributed.

I do not know how the property of these institutions is fixed or held ;
but any mode which the Legislature, or the Corporation of the city of New
York,, may designate, and which is applied to other institutions for kindred
objects, will be acquiesced in by the Public School Society.

I have spoken of the fact that there have been no objections made to the
schools ; but if there are dangers to be apprehended, it is wise in the Super-
intendent to discern them from afar. He stands as a sentinel on the watch-
tower, and it is his duty to look ahead and to see what dangers may come.
I have spoken of the consequences which may possibly grow out of the sys-
tem, but I repeat that, as yet, nothing of an injurious character has been
discovered. There has been no complaint made of the actual operation of
the schools, but something has been said in their favor ; and 1 propose now,

SPEECH OF MR. KETCHUM. 399

by the leave of the committee, to submit from public documents some of
those favorable things which have been said.

The School Commissioners are a body of men chosen one for each ward
by the Corporation, whose business it is to visit these schools and report
upon them. The law of 1824 makes it necessary that these school commis-
sioners shall not belong to the Public School Society, the object being to
have an impartial board. And I may say of the present school commission-
ers, that there are no gentlemen more respectable, and these gentlemen were
competent to judge of such matters. They do visit the schools, and I will
now read a short paragraph from their report of July 27th, 1840. They
say:

The qualifications and efforts of the teachers employed, and the course
of literary instruction in the schools, continue to deserve the approbation of
the commissioners. Without intending to detract from the acknowledged
merits of the many worthy individuals who devote themselves to the educa-
tion of youth in the numerous pay schools scattered throughout the city,
the commissioners may be allowed to express their belief that, generally, the
schools supported from the school money will not, as regards the progress
of the pupils in the several branches taught there, nor on the score of legiti-
mate discipline, suffer by a comparison with any others in this metropolis.

I have mentioned that the committee of the Corporation of the city of
New York, when they had this matter under investigation, thought it their
duty, before they reported, to visit the schools ; they did so, and this is
what they say :

The different classes examined in several schools by your committee ex-
hibited an astonishing progress in geography, astronomy, arithmetic, read-
ing, writing, &c., and indicated a capacity in the system for imparting
instruction far beyond our expectations ; and, though the order and arrange-
ment of each school would challenge comparison with a camp under a rigid
disciplinarian, yet the accustomed buoyancy* and cheerfulness of youth and
childhood did not appear to be destroyed in any one of them. Such were
the favorable impressions forced upon our minds by a careful examination
of the public schools. It is due to the trustees to add, that not one of our
visit's was anticipated, and no opportunity was afforded to any of the teach-
ers for even a momentary preparation.

Again :

The public school buildings are constructed upon a uniform model ; the
books used are the same in all the schools, and the classes and departments
in each are so similarly constituted and provided, that the removal of a
pupil from one school to another will not interrupt his studies or retard his
progress.

Now here is an advantage which those who live in the city of New York
understand and appreciate, and which a system contemplating the formation
of schools by small masses, never can have. Here is a system suited to a
migratory population. All the books, all the forms, all the lessons, are the
same ; and if a child removes from one ward to another, he can be put in
the class coresponding to that which he left, and he stands upon the same
footing. The blackboard is the same, the exercises are the same. Every'
one knows the advantage of continuing on the same course of education

400 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

which has been begun, if it was judicious in the first instance. But what
does this new system contemplate ? It contemplates the destruction of this
peculiarity ; and this report of the Secretary goes on to speak of the advan-
tages of the system pursued in the country. Qentlemen, the poorest child in
the city of New York has advantages in the way of education of elementary
education which are denied to nine tenths of the sons and daughters of the
farmers of the State of New York.

I challenge an investigation on this point ; and I maintain that no com-
mittee of this, or of the other House, can act understandingly until they
have visited these schools. They must do as the committee of the Common
Council did go and see for themselves. Why, then, should we change the
system ?

But it is said and said, too, in this report of the Secretary that he
proposes to retain these public schools. How retain them? One of the
features of the proposed new law is, that all school moneys shall be paid to
the teachers. Under such a law we cannot live a day not a day. We have
to buy stationery and books ; we have to build school-houses. We have
large schools, and the surplus, after the payment of teachers, goes to the
erection of school-houses, and the purchase of books and stationery. What
do you think is the expense, in the city of New York, of educating a child ?
not alone the expense of which I have spoken, but of furnishing books,
slates, and other stationery, and of fuel and repairs not rent but repairs
of school-houses. The expense for one year is less than five dollars a scholar.
For five dollars a whole year, this education, with all the necessary station-
ery, books, slates, and fuel, ig furnished. I say, if we are only to receive
pay for our teachers, we cannot exist a day.

There is another point. After the passage of the law of 1824, upon an
investigation made at the time .as ,to the condition of some of the destitute
part of our population, a representation was made by the Public School
Society, and, after the Corporation had excluded religious societies, the
Public School Society exerted themselves in behalf of the cause of educa-
tion, and induced a large number of the most considerable property-holders
of the city of New York to petition to be taxed for the purpose of carrying
out this system, and of extending it.

They petition the Corporation to ~be taxed. Sir, if ever there was a people
borne down by taxes, it is the people of the city of New York who have
property ; and yet, strange to say, men who paid from one hundred to two
thousand dollars annual taxes, confiding in these trustees, and desirous of
carrying out this system of education under the direction of these trustees,
came forward at their instance, and prayed the Corporation to tax them
more. A memorial for which I sought in vain with a view of bringing it
here, but which could not be found, shows the names of these petitioners
names which will be familiar to some of the members of this committee.
Here you have a perfect anomaly ! You can hardly produce a similar case
in any country. The petitioners, I say, came forward and prayed to be
taxed, at the instance of the Public School Society, for the purpose of carry-

SPEECH OF MB. KETCHUM. 401

ing out the system men who could not look to secure any person a benefit,
because they did not send their own children to these schools. The conse-
quence was, that the tax was laid, and it produced the sum of $72,000 annu-
ally. Only half that amount, however, was raised by our Common Council
last year under that head.

Since (excepting in the year 1840, as above stated) this tax was imposed,
it has yielded annually the sum aforesaid of $72,000. Now, if we are to
adopt this plan of election by the people if the system is to be so extended
as to be made like that which prevails in the country, we must adopt the
whole, and not a part only of that system ; we must have all, if we have
any of it ; and this sum of thirty-six thousand dollars, thus raised by this
tax, must be cut off. These petitioners have a right to say, " Gentlemen, the
contract is violated ; for although you may anticipate great evil in trusting
this money to this Corporation, yet it was by reason of our reliance upon
this Public School Society as our almoners, that we asked to be taxed. Now,
off with the tax ; let us have the system as it is in the country, and see what
will become of the public schools."

The amount received from special tax was, during the last year, $36,075 ;
and if we are to have the country system, that tax is relinquished, and then
the money is to be given out to commissioners, for school districts in the
small mass, to use the language of this report. For instance, we are to have
commissioners elected in each ward ; they are to partition the ward out into
school districts. These districts are to elect trustees. If there is not money
enough received from the State, and fund enough added to that which is
laid by the general tax, then these small masses must be taxed to build up
school-houses and to make up the deficiency. This I understand to be the
operation of the system in the country. These trustees are to lay a tax (to
make up the deficiency) upon the property-holders, and in this way we are
to have small masses governed by these trustees. We are to have such
religion as the majority may choose, and such books as the majority may
choose, and the whole of this system, which has been so well tried, and has
been productive of such good fruits, is to be exchanged for a new one. For
I maintain that, unless there is some very special provision not contemplated
on the face of this report, the public school system of the city of New York,
as now constituted, cannot stand. You must either have the system as it is
in the country, or our system as it exists at present in the city.

Now, is the committee prepared to report, and will the Senate be pre-
pared to adopt such a report one that shall cast off this system which has
been tried and approved, and that we shall " fly to something that we know
not of ? " "Will they decide that the agents to whom the city of New York
gave this power, some sixteen years ago, have been faithless to their trust,
and that the power shall be restored to the Legislature ? Will they decide
that they have now leisure to bestow more attention on this subject, and to
look more into the details than their predecessors had ? It was an argument
which forced itself strongly on the consideration of the Legislature of 1824 :
" We cannot understand this matter ; it is local ; it is different, in some
26

402 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

respects, from any thing we have in the country. We cannot well judge of
it, and -we will leave you to settle it among yourselves." But if the Legis-
lature of the present day has discovered a new mode of doing business, so
that it can take upon itself^a little more legislation for the city of New
York, very well ; I shall be glad to find that it is so. I shall be glad to find
that this Legislature does not feel the same pressure of business that its
predecessors felt in 1824, and that it can enter into these matters more
minutely. We had no disposition to take the subject into our hands then,
and we have no disposition that the Legislature should take it back now.
The people in New York understand the subject, and the Roman Catholics
cannot say that they will not be heard as well there as here. Why not leave
the matter to us, the people of the city of New York ? If you choose to
have commissioners elected by the people, instead of being chosen by the
Corporation, I say, " Amen ; very well ; enlarge their powers, if you choose ;
have the inspections and examinations more frequently if you choose, by
the agents of the people, chosen by the direct votes of the people." But let
us not disturb a system more healthful, and beautiful, and effective, as a
system, than any other where the English language is spoken. There is
nothing to be compared to it. If it shall be destroyed if our Catholic
brethren, of whom I wish to speak with great respect, have found so pow-
erful an auxiliary in the honorable Secretary of State, that they shall be able
to carry out their purposes here, and these schools should, in consequence,
be destroyed, that officer will gain a renown which will go down through
all time. But I should prefer the renown of him who fired the Ephesian
dome to that renown.

Mr. Chairman, the Public School Society have come here once more to
plead for the seminaries of elementary instruction under their charge. Six-
teen years gone by they passed through one trying scene. They contest was
long, arduous, and severe, and their hearts began to fail, and their hands to
tire, but they succeeded then. Now, the contest is renewed, and the trustees
engage in it with extreme reluctance ; they have no personal interests to
advance, and they are very unwilling to be put in hostile array against any
of their fellow-citizens. They are men of peace ; their ends and purposes
are all peaceable ; they desire, as servants of the people, to do some good to
the rising generation, if permitted ; they are willing to visit the schools, to
foster them, to collect in them the destitute and the outcast, but they abhor
controversy. If the Public School Society shall be permitted to go on, as in
former years it has gone on, I cannot doubt there will always be found a
class of citizens who, competent and efficient, are willing to volunteer their
services in advancing the cause of education ; and, under the careful and
searching supervision of agents chosen by the people, I hope the trustees,
and their successors, may be permitted, for ages to come, to continue their
benevolent labors. .

The committee proceeded with the consideration of the ques-
tion, and, on the llth of May, Mr. Root, the chairman, intro-

MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE. 403

duced a bill, which was passed by unanimous consent to its
second reading, and ordered to the Committee of the Whole.

On Thursday, May 20th, Mr. Yerplanck moved that the bill
be made the special order for the next day, which was agreed to.
The special order was not moved on Friday, but a remonstrance
from the Public School Society, in reply to Mr. Spencer's report,
was laid before the Senate. It is as follows :

IN SINATE, May 21, 1841.
MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE

OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY OF THE CITY OF NEW

YORK.

To the Senate of the State of New York :

The memorial and remonstrance of the trustees of the Public School
Society of the city of New York, RESPECTFULLY REPRESENT :

That they have had under consideration the report of the Superintendent
of Common Schools, in relation to public instruction in the city of New
York, which was presented to your honorable body during the present ses-
sion, and have given to it the careful and deliberate consideration which the
high importance of the subject demands.

Having, during many years, devoted much time and labor in promoting
and conducting public education in this city, your memorialists trust that it
will not be considered obtrusive in them to present to the Senate the results
of their observations and practical knowledge of the subject, as well as the
facts and arguments on which they rely in justification of their remonstrance
against the propositions contained in the report referred to. In doing so,
your remonstrants feel relieved from the necessity of adducing any new or
additional evidences of the quality and efficiency of the numerous schools
under their charge. The annual returns of the Commissioners of School
Money (a board of seventeen citizens, appointed by the Common Council),
under whose supervision the. schools are conducted, furnish decided evidence
of their good quality ; and, very recently, a special committee of the Board
of Aldermen, after having visited and examined the schools, in company
with a jealous and watchful delegation from the citizens, whose memorials
gave rise to the report now under review, bore the most ample testimony to
the excellency of the schools and efficiency of the system, and gave it as
their opinion that, if " any portion of the children should be left unedu-
cated, it cannot be justly chargeable to a want of comprehensiveness in the
system, but is more fairly attributable to imperfections which human legis-
lation cannot remedy." (See Document No. 40 of the Board of Aldermen,
p. 560.)

During the past summer, the public schools were also inspected by a
commission appointed for that purpose by the Superintendent, and your
memorialists venture to appeal to their report to sustain the good character
which is claimed for the schools. The report now under review has, how-
ever, so fully and frankly assumed the correctness of this position, that com-

404 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY..

inent on this head might, perhaps, have been spared. If, then, it be admit-
ted that the system of public instruction which now exists in this city is
good, and is acceptable to the municipal government and to the citizens
generally, the question presents itself, Why should the Legislature of the
State interpose its authority for the purpose of altering or changing that
system ? The reasons assigned in the report of the Superintendent of Com-
mon Schools may be arranged under four principal heads :

1st. That public education in the city of New York is now chiefly under
the control of a private corporation, which receives nearly all the money
raised by a general and indiscriminate tax, and that those who pay the tax
have no voice in the selection of those who administer the system, nor con-
trol over the application of the public moneys thus appropriated.

3d. That, in the management of the existing public schools, " the con-
scientious opinions and feelings of large classes of citizens are disregard-
ed ; " that the system is " unfavorable, if not hostile, to those principles of
religious faith," held by some of the memorialists " to be dearer than life
itself;" and that they "cannot, consistently with their views of religious
duty to their children, send them to such schools."

3d. That " there are numerous other schools in the city of New York,
founded by voluntary associations, in which many thousands of the children
of poverty and distress receive their education," and that these schools are
arbitrarily excluded from all participation in a common fund collected by
the joint contributions of all.

4th. That the present system of public instruction has failed to accom-
plish the purpose for which it was organized.

The prominent objections urged in the report are here, it is believed,
fully and fairly embraced ; and your remonstrants will proceed to consider
them in the order in which they occur. In estimating the validity and force
of the first objection, it is important to bring into view the probable mo-
tives that induced the Legislature to exempt the city of New York from
laws applied to every other part of the State. The enlightened men who
originated our general system of common school education must have seen,
or thought that they saw, something so peculiar in the population of a large
city, something so different from the more homogeneous and less changeable
population of other parts of the State, as to demand special legislative pro-
visions. When attention was directed to this city, it was found that several
religious societies and churches supported charity schools for the education
of the children of their indigent members, and that a number of philan-
thropic individuals had anticipated the action of the State, and had been
tor nearly ten years associated under a charter, for the purpose of educating
those poor children who were not provided for in the Church schools. The
Legislature, therefore, in 1813, when the first distribution was made, very
naturally appropriated the amount apportioned to this city to these schools,
in the ratio of the number of children taught in each. This mode of dis-
tribution continued until 1824, when the subject was again brought before
the Legislature by the jealousies, disputes, and difficulties which had arisen

MEMOEIAL AND REMONSTRANCE. 405

amongst the recipients ; and the conflicting parties presented themselves at
Albany, for the purpose of sustaining their respective claims.

In the progress of the inquiries and discussion which ensued, it became
manifest that moneys raised by a general and indiscriminate tax could not
be given to any religious society or association, without a flagrant violation
of one of the most prominent conditions of our political compact. That
this obvious truth did not present itself to the notice of the Legislature,
when provision was first made for the distribution in this city, can be ac-
counted for only on the supposition that the small amount to be distributed,
and the intrinsic difficulty of making suitable provision for a large, dense,
and mixed population, induced a temporary resort to the readiest expedient
that presented.

The report of the committee of the Assembly which was charged with
the duty of assembling the claimants referred to, contains the following pas-
sages:

It appears that the city of New York is the only part of the State where
the school fund is at all subject to the control of religious societies.

Your committee forbear, in this place, to enter fully into this branch of
the subject ; but they respectfully submit, whether it is not a violation of a
fundamental principle of our legislation to allow the funds of the State,
raised by a tax on the citizens, and designed for civil purposes, to be subject
to the control of any religious corporation.

Still, no plan adapted to the wants of the city was suggested. But the
manifest propriety of referring the subject to the immediate, exclusive, and
local representatives of its inhabitants, forced itself upon the Legislature.
A belief that the municipal government would better understand the feel-
ings and necessities of the local population, in its several parts and condi-
tions as well as a whole, and be thereby better enabled to reconcile conflict-
ing interests and opinions, doubtless induced the Legislature to delegate the
power to the Common Council of the city.

Accordingly, in the session of 1824, as stated in the report of the Super-
intendent, a law was passed vesting in the Common Council the right to
designate " the institutions and schools " which shall be entitled to receive a
share of the school moneys, and prescribe the rules and restrictions under
which such moneys should be received by 'such institutions or schools
respectively.

It is here worthy of remark, that this act repealed the act of 1813, which
expressly enumerated " religious societies " among the recipients ; and yet,
in transferring the power, no mention is made of such societies ; but the
parties designated as those among whom it might be divided was made to
embrace all the other parties included in the act of 1813, viz., " institutions
and schools."

If this may not be considered of binding obligation on the Common
Council, it is certainly indicative particularly when taken in connection
with the language of the report of the committee of the Assembly, above
quoted of the feeling which prevailed on the subject of " religious socie-
ties," and at least lent the sanction of the Legislature to the continued use

406 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

of private incorporations for purposes of common education. However this
may be, the conflict was renewed in this city, and, after a patient hearing of
the parties and a full investigation of the subject, religious societies -were
excluded; and sour remonstrants were made, as stated in the report, the
chief agents in disbursing the school money, and in carrying out the views
of the Government in relation to common schools.

This duty they have continued to discharge with untiring industry ami
r.eal from that time to the present ; with what degree of abilty and success,
will appear in the progress of this remonstrance.

After nearly forty years, the question is now for the first time raised in
t'ae Legislature, Shall a private corporation, the members of which are not
elected by, nor directly responsible to, the people, be permitted, however suc-
cessfully and judiciously, to disburse moneys raised by a general tax ? It
will readily be seen that, if a negative answer must be given upon the mere
abstract proposition, and without regard to the checks and safeguards which'
may have been thrown around the trust, or to the length of time it has
faithfully performed its functions and sustained a jealous and searching
scrutiny, it will be a first step in a radical system of reform which, if car-
ried out, can scarcely stop short of remodelling the organization of civil
society. Our hospitals, our asylums for the insane, for the blind, for the
mute, our dispensaries and houses of refuge, &c., must all fall before it,
because all and each of these receive and disburse the people's money ; and
in none of them are the trustees or managers elected by, or immediately
responsible to, the people. Indeed, the above institutions are in several
respects more obnoxious to the objections urged in the Superintendent's
report than is the institution now attacked. To several, if not all of them,
the Legislature has secured the annual payment of large sums of public
money, to be continued twenty, twenty-five, and thirty years, and without
any direct or fixed system of supervision on the part of the people or their
representatives. As regards the House of Refuge of Juvenile Delinquents
an institution which that eminent philanthropist and enlightened statesman,
De Witt Clinton, declared to be " the best penitentiary institution ever
devised by the wit and established by the beneficence of man " the com-
parison does not stop here. This " private corporation " is not only en-
trusted with public money, but is permitted to exercise a " function which
emphatically belongs to the Government " that of carrying out the sen-
tence of courts of criminal jurisprudence. Now, what are the circumstances
under which your remonstrants are permitted to provide for public educa-
tion ? a duty which some governments have never assumed, and which
some of the most enlightened have, until very recently, entirely neglected.

They are under the supervision of a Board of Commissioners, consisting
of seventeen citizens appointed by the immediate representatives of the peo-
ple, and without whose certificate of approval they cannot draw a cent from
the public purse. Should this Board neglect or refuse to discharge its duty,
it is competent for the appointing power to strike your remonstrants from
the list of recipients, and destroy at once their capacity for evil.

The Mayor and Recorder are ex-officio members of the Board of Trustees,

MEMOEIAL AND REMONSTRANCE. 407

and the board is required by law " to make a report, during the month of
May in each year, to the Superintendent of Common Schools, and also to the
Common Council of this city, containing a particular account of the state
of their schools, and the moneys received and expended by them during the
preceding year, so as to exhibit a full and perfect statement of the property,
funds, and affairs of said Society." (See 4th section, Law of Common Coun-
cil, March 7, 1834.)

In addition to these salutary provisions of law, the Superintendent of
Common Schools, although he docs not claim to be authorized, he very pro-
perly did, within a year, appoint a commission to visit and examine the
schools under the charge of your remonstrants, and report their condition to
him ; a duty which they performed, and the result is stated in his report to
your honorable body, which is now under consideration.

These are facts accessible to all whose duty or inclination might prompt
them to make the inquiry ; and yet, as your remonstrants perceive with sur-
prise and regret, the Superintendent has overlooked them, and avers that the
Public School Society is " an anomaly wholly unknown in any other depart-
ment of the public service," and that it is " not amenable in any form to the
laws, nor subject to any supervision by the government of its officers ; " and
finally, that its existence " involves a principle so hostile to the whole spirit
of our insitutions, that it is impossible it should be long sustained."

The strong and pointed terms in which the Superintendent deprecates
the agency of persons who are not elected by the people in carrying out the
intentions of government in relation to education, contrasts strangely with
the facts that, at his suggestion, a law was passed, in 1839, authorizing him
to appoint county visitors ; and in his last annual report he announces a
material improvement in the discharge of duty on the part of commissioners
and inspectors who are elected by the people, and attributes it chiefly to the
diligence, advice, and stimulating example of the county visitors, who are
not elected by, nor are they responsible to' the people.

In a report made to the Legislature, in 1840, transmitting abstracts of the
reports of the county visitors appointed by the Superintendent, it is stated
that " they concur in representing the inspectors chosen at the town meet-
ings as being generally not well qualified for that particular duty, and as
being very remiss in its performance ; " " that the examinations of the
inspectors are slight and superficial, and that no benefit is derived from
them ; " and the Superintendent remarks : " It has already been shown to
the Legislature from the official returns, that at least one half of all the
schools in the State are not visited at all by the inspectors."

The practice of conferring on private corporations some of the functions
of government, and entrusting them with public money, obtained in the
earliest period of our existence as an independent nation, at a time and with
a population as vigilant and as jealous of their own rights as can be justly
claimed for those of the present day. Your remonstrants are fully aware
that the trite political maxims which are arrayed against them in the report
of the Superintendent of Common Schools exert a powerful influence on the
public mind, and that those who would oppose their application, in any

408 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

given instance, must encounter a strong current of popular prejudice. But
it is respectfully submitted to your honorable body, whether the position in
which the public schools of this city are placed by legal enactments does
not render them as safe as other institutions incorporated for purposes of a
kindred character, and afford as ample security against abuse ?

Your remonstrants will now preceed to consider the objections classed
under the second head, viz. :

That, in the management of the existing public schools, the conscientious
opinions and feelings of large classes of citizens are disregarded ; and that
the system is unfavorable, if not hostile, to those principles of religious faith
held by some of the memorialists to be dearer than life itself; and that they
cannot, consistently with their views of religious duty to their children, send
them to such schools.

These declarations, so far as the trustees have any agency or control, are
entirely erroneous, and your remonstrants cannot withhold an expression of
their surprise that the Superintendent of Common Schools should have been
so inattentive an observer of events connected with the subject of education
within this State, as not to be aware of their incorrectness ; and that he
should, even indirectly, lend to them the high sanction of his official
signature.

The first open attack upon the public schools of this city was commenced
by those whose charges gave rise to this inquiry some years since, and they
have been made to assume various and opposite forms. When disproved in
one form, they have been revived in another.

At one time -it was declared, " the public school system in the city of
New York is entirely favorable to the sectarianism of infidelity, and opposed
only to that of positive Christianity," that it " leaves the will of the pupil
to riot in the fierceness of unrestrained lusts," and is " calculated to make
bad and dangerous citizens."

Now, it is contended that the conscientious opinions and feelings of large
classes of citizens are disregarded, and that the system is unfavorable, not
to religion or morals, but to the " pinndples of religious faith " held by the
complainants.

The former high and most extraordinary charges were promptly met and
refuted. It now remains to show that the latter are equally destitute of
foundation.

In the year 1834, an interview was had with the then acting Roman
Catholic Bishop of this diocese, for the purpose of assuring him of the wish
of your remonstrants to remove from tbe school-books every thing offensive
to his Church, and to invite his active cooperation in attaining that end.
More recently, the same overtures were made, verbally and in written com-
munications, to dignitaries of various grades in the same Church. During
the past year, a committee was appointed by the trustees of the Public
School Society to examine the " books in use in the public schools, includ-
ing those in the libraries, with a view to ascertain and report whether they
contain any thing derogatory to the Roman Catholic Church, or any of its
religious tenets, with power to communicate with such persons of that

MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE. 409

Church as may be authorized to meet them in reference to such alterations."
Conferences were accordingly had with Catholic priests, and the school-
book's were left with them for examination. These advances and proposals
of the trustees were not, however, met in the spirit in which they were
made. Those to whom the books were submitted, after detaining them
some time, declined uniting in any examination of their contents.

The trustees' of the public schools nevertheless proceeded and completed
the work of expurgation without the aid of those who had complained so
vehemently of the injustice which had been done them. The evidences of
the truth of this statement are contained in numerous written and printed
documents ; they are spread on the minutes of the proceedings of your
remonstrants ; they are contained in the files of both departments of the
city Government, and have been widely circulated in printed statements,
both official and unofficial ; and yet your honorable body is assured that the
conscientious opinions and feelings of large classes of citizens (meaning
Roman Catholics) have been disregarded.

In relation to the second and third branches of the charges included
under the second head, your remonstrants can only say that, so far as they
were able to discover, the exceptionable passages in the school-books were
such as occur in the histories commonly approved, or they we're incidental
remarks of frequent occurrence. It is admitted that the objectors have the
exclusive right to judge, so far as regards the danger to their own offspring.
But in the progress of these negotiations and expurgations, your remon-
strants were driven by the force of circumstances into the conclusion, that
the opposition to the public schools, and to the books used in them, had
some ulterior object in view. This may seem illiberal, but frankness demands
the avowal ; and a single fact will serve to show that the conclusion is not
entirely without ground to rest upon.

During an examination of one of the Catholic schools, the committee of
the Board of Aldermen, in company with a delegation from your remon-
strants, found in use, as a class-book, the identical work to which exception
had been taken, and the only one which, in the proceedings before that
Board, was quoted from as evidence that Catholic children could not be sent
to the public schools. Nor did the inconsistency of the affair stop here.
The exceptionable passage had long been erased from the copies in the pub-
lic schools, while it remained unobscured in those attached to the Catholic
churches.

The propositions under the third head are : " That there are numerous
other schools founded by voluntary associations, in which many thousands
of the children of poverty and distress receive their education," and that
these schools, maintained for the same objects and accomplishing the same
beneficial results, are arbitrarily excluded from all participation in a common
fund collected by the joint contributions of all."

Without stopping to inquire whether the terms " voluntary associations "
may be properly applied to a board of trustees of a Church-school, your
remonstrants cannot withhold the remark that this part of the report would
have been more explicit and better understood if it had stated the fact that

410 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the schools referred to are attached to, and are under the exclusive control
of, Roman Catholic churches, viz. : " St. Peter's Church," " St. Mary's Roman
Catholic Church," " St. Patrick's," " Transfiguration Church," " St. Joseph's,"
" St. James'," and " St. Nicholas' Church."

The citizens at large are not only shut out from the management of these
schools by their organization, but the books used and the doctrines taught
in them are so utterly exclusive and intolerant, as to forbid' the attendance
not only of the children of parents of every other religious sect, but of those
of no sect.

They are not merely the incidental remarks of the historian, or extracts
tiom the Holy Scriptures, " without note or comment," to which such strong
exception has been taken in relation to the public schools, but they are such
as ever have, and, in the opinion of your remonstrants, ever must tend, if
sustained by tax imposed upon the anathematized portion of the commu-
nity, to destroy public harmony ; and such as would prove any thing rather
than a " social benefit."

But your remonstrants deny that these schools are " maintained for the
same object" as are the public schools ; or, rather, they contend that objects
are embraced in them, and are deemed of vital importance, which do not
nor can they enter into the course of instruction in the public schools,
because the conflicting opinions of the trustees do not admit of it. It is
true that, when the glaring inconsistency of asking for public aid in support
of schools so managed was urged upon the applicants, they proposed that
no religious instruction should be given " during the usual school hours."
But having in view the stringency with which the same party insisted on
the necessity of religious in juxtaposition with secular education, and the
warmth with which they denounced the public school system when they
saw fit to charge it with excluding religion, and particularly when reference
is had to their avowed dogma that there is no hope of salvation to those not
of the Roman Catholic Church, which dogma is now taught in their
schools it should not be cause of surprise that doubts were entertained of
a full compliance with the condition ; or, even if literally complied with,
could it be considered such a separation of the two objects as the public
might of right demand if taxed to support the schools ?

The tenacity with which men adhere to " those principles of religious
faith upon which, in their estimation, their present and eternal welfare
depends," and which is so forcibly described in the report of the Superin-
tendent, would seem to admonish legislators not to tax the whole com-
munity for the support of educational establishments which are controlled
exclusively by those professing the same faith, lest the very sincerity which
the report so justly attributes to persons of this class, should induce them to
promote the religious at the expense of the literary education of the pupils ;
which certainly was not the intention of the Legislature in establishing the
system of common school education.

Your remonstrants had supposed that the fact of the Public School
Society being constituted of men professing every variety of religious faith,
would neutralize sectarian tendencies and secure it against abuse. Whether

MEMOEIAL AND KEMONSTKANCE. 411

a division of the city into small masses, under the immediate control of the
people themselves, is better calculated to attain that end, will be considered
in another place.

The fourth and last division of the objections to the existing system of
education which are presented in the report of the Superintendent of Com-
mon Schools, remains to be considered, viz. :

That the present system of public instruction has failed to accomplish
the purpose for which it was organized.

In order to sustain this hypothesis, it is stated, and certainly on what
might be considered good authority, " that more than one half of the chil-
dren between four and sixteen years of age, in the city of New York, are
not receiving the benefit of any education whatever." That the number of
such children is very great, cannot be denied ; but there can be no doubt
and your remonstrants assert with confidence that it is greatly overrated in
estimates founded upon the returns of the United States marshals, and for
reasons which, on reflection, are entirely obvious. It is true, as stated in the
report, that the trustees of the public schools drew the same conclusion from
the data furnished in the census, in memorializing the Legislature for an
appropriation of money for the erection of additional school-houses. The
truth of the statement was questioned by some when the memorial was
under consideration ; and subsequent reflection and inquiry have convinced
all, that the actual number of uneducated children cannot be one third of
that which is assumed in the report.

It is well known that very many parents will not send their children to
school until they are six years of age ; and thousands refuse to continue
them there after they are eleven or twelve, because they can then be placed
in situations to support themselves, or can be made available in contributing
to the support of the family. Pending the preparation of this remonstrance,
an inquiry has been instituted for the purpose of ascertaining what propor-
tion of the children who enter the public schools remain in them after
twelve years of age ; and it is found, by returns received from ninety-one
out of one hundred and two schools, that it is only seven and two thirds
per cent. In a family of six children within the school age say of the
respective ages of five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen, and fifteen only half
may be attending school ; and yet, none should be returned as being with-
out the means of education, because the youngest may be kept at home in
consequence of its age, and receive some instruction from the mother or
older children, and the two oldest may have received as much education as
the law contemplates or as the parents deem necessary. The youngest and
the two oldest should, therefore, be excluded from the list of those who are
not " receiving the benefits of any education whatever."

It is believed that the estimated number attending private schools is
much too small, and the result of a partial inquiry made in a single ward
(the Seventh) would appear to sustain this view. There are, moreover, a
considerable number of children belonging to this city who are sent for edu-
cation to the numerous colleges, academies, institutions, and boarding-
schools located in this and the adjacent States, and the number cannot be

412 TI1E PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

very small \vho are taught t home under governesses and other private
tutors. Both these classes should be included in the number attending pri-
vate schools.

In connection with, and as having an intimate and most important bear-
ing upon, this branch of the subject, your remonstrants ask attention to the
facts derived from the report made by the Secretary of State to the Legisla-
ture during the present session (Document No. 277), by which it appears
that the whole number of paupers supported at poor-houses in this State is
56,561 ; and that, of this number, 27,553, or nearly one half, are in the city
of New York ; or that the number of paupers in the counties, exclusive of
New York, is as 1 to 42 and a fraction to the whole population, while the
number in New York is as 1 to 11 and a fraction. The comparison between
the out-door paupers, or those relieved at their own residences, shows a still
greater disparity between the metropolis and other parts of the State. Of
this class of persons there are in the State, exclusive of this city, 29,008 ;
and in the city, 27,553 ; or the out-door paupers in the State, exclusive of
the city, is as 1 in 73 of the whole population, and in the city as 1 to 12.
But the great disproportion of paupers between the city and country is not
fully made out by this method of estimating ; for it is well known that,
besides the thousands in the city who subsist by a practice but little known
in the country (street-begging), there is a very large number who are
indebted for permanent or temporary relief to private sympathy, and the
benevolent institutions of which there are so many in the city. Could all
these be added to the number contained in the official returns, it would be
swelled greatly beyond the number in every other part of the State.

Your remonstrants have not the means at hand of presenting a compara-
tive view of commitments and convictions for vagrancy and crime, but it is
confidently believed that they would present results equally unfavorable to
the city. Now, if the Superintendent of Common Schools can furnish rea-
sons for these discrepancies, he will at the same time account for your
remonstrants having failed to induce all the poor children in the city to
attend the public schools.

This would seem a proper place to correct an error in the report, which
states that there is not a " want of accommodation for pupils." The fact is
far otherwise. The present school buildings are generally full, and some of
them are crowded to a degree that is equally prejudicial to health and
unfavorable to the acquisition of learning.

How the Superintendent was led into this error, is not perceived, unless
he inferred it from the efforts used to induce the attendance of children ;
which is not improbable, from his adverting to those efforts in connection
with the remark regarding accommodations. When a school is full, efforts
in that vicinity are diminished, and they are directed to some other point.
But the chief want of accommodation for pupils arises from the fact that
there are portions of the city which have grown up within a few years, and
in which there are no school-houses. This was explained in the memorial
(referred to in the report) asking for an appropriation of money to erect
additional school buildings.

MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE. 413

Your remonstrants will now submit a few remarks in relation to the
causes of the disparity between the registered number of children in the
public schools and the average attendance to which reference is made in the
report.

The irregular attendance of children who are entered on the registers of
the public schools has ever been cause of serious regret to the trustees, and
every thing has been done which ingenuity could suggest and zeal accom-
plish in order to lessen this acknowledged evil an evil which is found to
arise from various causes, many of which are justified by necessity, and
many more have their origin in indifference, or the want of vigilance and
firmness on the part of parents. All of them, it is confidently believed, are
beyond the reach of any remedy proposed in the plan of the Superintendent
of Common Schools. Among the justifiable causes, is the straitened circum-
stances of a large proportion of the parents whose children enter the public
schools. In a numerous class of cases, the mother " goes out to work " one
or two days in each week, and is under the necessity of retaining the oldest
child at home to take care of the younger ones. Very many married women
are thus employed for the purpose of contributing to the support of the
family ; and as there are more than one thousand four hundred widows
whose children attend the public schools, it will be seen that this cause must
embrace a large number ; and it is a cause which, if it exists at all, can only
be to a very limited extent in country districts.

Another most prolific cause of irregular attendance, ranging under this
head, is the inability of many parents to furnish their children with suit-
able clothing, and particularly shoes, to encounter the cold and storms of
winter. It is customary for the teachers to note, on the registers of daily
attendance, unusual cold and storms, and such days will be found to dimin-
ish the attendance to the extent of one to two hundred in a single school-
building ; and yet it is not unusual to see numbers come to school with
naked feet in moderately cold weather, and when there is ice in the streets.
Another cause which exists to a considerable extent, but which may not,
perhaps, be so clearly classed among those that are justifiable, and which
cannot prevail in country districts, is the fact that many families rely for
fuel, to a considerable extent, on such as children can pick up in shipyards,
at buildings that are being torn down, &c. ; and this is accordingly assigned
by parents as a motive for keeping their children from school a part of each
week. Another cause which many parents consider justifiable, and which
does not operate in the country, is the frequent military and civic parades
incident to the metropolis of this State.

Among the unjustifiable causes of irregular attendance, truancy deserves
a prominent place ; and it must be seen that this fruitful cause will prevail
to a far greater extent in a large city than in country districts. In the for-
mer, there is an almost infinite variety of exciting circumstances which
induce this vicious habit, and which are unknown in the latter. It can
scarcely be necessary to enumerate them. The occurrence, or even the
alarm, of fire leads to the absence of hundreds from school ; and it is wor-
thy of special remark that it can be induged in with greater impunity in a

414 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

large and mixed population like this city, than in the more scattered and
uniform population of the country districts.

Having in view the fact that, if one hundred children are absent from
school each twelve days during the year, it will reduce the average attend-
ance twenty-four hundred, it should not be a matter of surprise, particularly
when considered in connection with the causes and motives to absence
which are peculiar to large cities, that the disparity is so great. It appears,
from actual inquiry, to be even somewhat greater in Boston than in New
York. It is estimated that the single fact that a large portion of .the people
whose children attend the public schools, move their places of residence in
May of each year a practice not known in any other city causes the
absence from school of one fourth of the children for two weeks. They
are generally withdrawn several days before moving-day, and a greater num-
ber of days are lost afterward, before they enter another school. These and
other reasons why the disparity between the registered number of children
attending the public schools and the actual average attendance, is greater
than in other parts of the State, are, to your remonstrants, so obvious, that
they are surprised they did not occur to the acute and observing mind of
the author of the report. And it is equally matter of wonder that, in call-
ing attention to this difference, he did not advert to the very important fact
that the public schools of this city are kept open all the year, while in far
the greater part of the country districts they are kept open four, five, six,
seven, eight, and nine months ; even including the cities of Hudson, Albany,
Troy, Schenectady, Utica, Rochester, and Buffalo, in which they are open
the whole year. The district schools of the State (exclusive of the city of
New York) are open an average period of less than eight months in each
year ; and in those which are strictly country districts, not including the
cities, the average is found to be less. It will hence be seen that even those
pupils whose actual attendance at the public schools in this city average
eight months in a year, are, for all practical and beneficial purposes, obtain-
ing an amount of school-learning fully equal to those who attend the coun-
try district schools ; and when the great and acknowledged superiority of
the public schools over the district schools generally is admitted into the
estimate, it will be found that the balance is in favor of the public school
system.

Your remonstrants feel assured, however, that the percentage of absen-
tees in the district schools is altogether erroneous. From observation and
inquiry made recently, it is evident that in some, and probably in a large
part, of the district schools, means are not even used to arrive at any thing
like accurate knowledge on this subject.

The report of the Superintendent of Common Schools supposes the con-
tinued existence of the public schools as part of his system ; but in no part
of the report is he more in error than in this. They could not endure a
single year in connection with his system.

The mode of instruction in the public schools is a modification of that
which originated with the late Joseph Lancaster, and is made to depend on
a large number of pupils under few paid instructors. In lessening the nuin-

MEMOEIA.L AND REMONSTRANCE. 415

ber of pupils one half, the expense, as regards teachers, could not be dimin-
ished. The opening of the district schools could not fail to dive'rt pupils
from the public schools, and thereby reduce the claims of the trustees on the
school fund, without reducing the pecuniary demands upon them. The
present expense of tuition in the public schools is reduced to the lowest pos-
sible sum, and may safely challenge a comparison with that of equal qual-
ity in any other place, or even with that of the district schools of this
State.

In the latter, as appears from the last annual report, the average cost per
child for teachers' wages is $3.35 for less than eight months' tuition, one
half of which is exclusively by females ; while the average cost in the pub-
lic schools of this city for twelve months' tuition, under teachers of a qual-
ity and grade unknown to the district schools, is $2.75.

The sum now at the disposal of the trustees is barely sufficient to sustain
the schools as they are ; any considerable reduction must close them.

The report does, indeed, provide for the reduced income, by supposing
it will be made up in the tuition fees which the contemplated system
involves. But this has been fairly tried, and was found to fail, for reasons
which will be stated hereafter.

From an intimate knowledge of the subject, the trustees are persuaded
that the public schools would be broken up by introducing the Superinten-
dent's mixed system into the city, and that the district system of the State
would, as a necessary consequence, supersede it.

The Superintendent himself evidently anticipates this result, and there-
fore suggests that such public school buildings as might not be wanted by
the Society, under the new system, could be sold, -or hired out.

In considering the plan submitted to the Senate, your remonstrants will,
therefore, confine their remarks and reasoning to the district system of the
State.

The objections to the introduction of this system into the city of New
York may be ranged under the following heads :

1. Its tendency to associate itself with party politics ;

2. Its want of uniformity ; and

3. Its incapacity to remove the difficulties alleged to be inherent in the
present system.

That it is obnoxious to the first objection, appears so evident, that it is
matter of surprise that any iptelligent person should entertain doubts upon
the subject.

The place of district school teacher, provided competent persons are
employed and the character of the public schools is sustained, must be, in a
pecuniary point of view at least, as desirable as very many offices which are
now sought for with so much avidity by political partisans, and which are
so often bestowed with little regard to the qualifications of the applicant.
It is not perceived why the appointment of teacher will not be subjected to
the same practice.

If the practice has not obtained in the country districts, it is because the
compensation does not hold out an inducement. Admit, then, that teachers

416 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

will be selected with reference to their political attachments, and all will
agree that consequences the moet disastrous to the cause of public education
must ensue.

A successful and judicious teacher of youth combines qualifications
which are not, in yery numerous instances, found in one person.

It has presented one of the greatest difficulties which your remonstrants
have had to encounter, and induced them, some years since, to open two
normal schools for the purpose of training, in connection with the monito-
rial plan of the public schools, young persons of both sexes to this impor-
tant profession. These schools have been attended by more than three hun-
dred pupils.

The practice of conferring office as a reward for political services, is
cause of deep regret to reflecting men of all parties, and a hope was in-
dulged that the system of common school education would be exempted
from its deleterious and blighting influence.

To the second objection to the district system in this city, viz., " Its want
of uniformity," the attention of the Senate is particularly solicited, because,
of itself, it is deemed a fatal objection to the plan of the Superintendent of
Common Schools. It is well known that a large proportion of the children
who attend the public schools remove from one locality to another almost
every year, and that many of them change more frequently. Under the
present uniform system, these changes are attended by very little, if any,
check to the progress of the pupil in his studies. On leaving one school,
he is transferred, by certificate, to another, and enters a class of the same
grade with the one he has just left, continues to use the same books, and is
taught by the same method. The disadvantages which result to the pupil
from frequent changes, where schools are under independent or adverse man-
agement, is too well known and universally admitted to require illustration.
Much of the time of children so circumstanced, which is now devoted to the
acquisition of learning, will then be thrown away in studying new methods
of learning ; and the brief period of time that the children of persons in
low and moderate circumstances are permitted to devote to school learning,
strongly admonishes those who provide the means, to study an efficient and
economical use of that time.

Another and a most serious evil inseparable from the proposed system, is
the diversity of books it renders necessary. The public schools of this city
furnish books to their pupils without charge ; while in the district schools
of the State the pupil is left to provide them for himself. The consequence
is, that the use of uniform books cannot be secured, and hence, when a child
removes from one school to another, he may have to use books not used by
other pupils in the same school, or the parent may, however poor, be com-
pelled to procure new books as often as his child enters a new school. The
expense would not, in very many instances, be submitted to, and confusion
in the classes would be an inevitable consequence.

This has been frequently referred to by different superintendents, as a
serious evil in the district schools in the country, where children seldom
have occasion to leave one school for another ; and it would, of necessity,

MEMOEIAL AND REMONSTBANCE. 417

be immeasurably enhanced under the same system in this city, where chil-
dren so frequently change the place of residence.

The third and last objection to the district system, as applied to this
city, is " its incapacity to remove the difficulties alleged to be inherent in
the present system ; " and if this proposition can be sustained, the principal
motives for hazarding the abandonment of a long-tried and well-proved
plan, for the purpose of introducing one of doubtful expediency, and which,
it has been shown, is liable to other very serious objections, will cease to
exist.

The report fully recognizes the propriety and necessity of " a very con-
siderable amount of religious instruction," and very justly remarks, that
" religion and literature have become inseparably interwoven."

It is evident, therefore, that an education strictly and exclusively literary
and scientific is not contemplated. But it is contended that, in the public
school system, the conscientious opinions and " feelings of large classes of
citizens are disregarded." It has been shown that this charge is so far from
the fact, that strenuous and long-continued efforts have been used to recon-
cile conflicting views, by subjecting the school-books to expurgation. If,
however, the charge was as well as it is ill-founded, the questions present
themselves, What is the remedy proposed ? and, What is its character and
means of efficacy ?

The remedy is, a division of the city into school districts, or " small
masses," under the general care and supervision of persons elected for the
purpose in each ward, who are to be, aided by a salaried superintendent ; but
it leaves the " amount and description of religious instruction " to be deter-
mined by the parents inhabiting the district.

It will thus be seen that a cure is not even promised. The remedy can
only scatter throughout the body a disease which is declared to be constitu-
tional, and which now gives uneasiness to only one of the members.

It is not perceived that the scheme of the Superintendent sustains his
own principles. The report very justly remarks, that, " according to the
principle of our institutions, no one has the authority to determine whether
the religious doctrines and sentiments of any class of our citizens be right
or wrong," and certainly no such authority has ever been assumed by your
remonstrants. But what must be the practical effect of the district system ?
Every school district in this city would unquestionably contain persons pro-
fessing a variety of religious opinions, and, as they are to determine the
degree and kind of religious instruction to be given in the district school, it
is inevitable that the majority will be enabled either to impose their own
religious opinions and dogmas on the children of the minority, or to drive
them into the street. What is there in the composition of small masses, oy
districts, that can be relied upon to reconcile conflicting " modes of faith,"
or overcome religious jealousies and bickerings ?

If men of enlightened and liberal minds if those to whom the people

look for advice and direction in spiritual matters, and whose decisions

would not be appealed from, cannot agree upon religious reading which

would silence sectarian jealousy, what can be expected of the " masses " of

418 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

which the school districts will be composed ? Or if as would probably be
the case in many districts apathy and indifference to the subject should
leave religious instruction to accident or the taste of the teacher, would not
the spirit of proselytism, which induces the missionary to visit the " utter-
most parts of the earth," step in and disturb what all would consider a dan-
gerous harmony ? and, whatever might be the good effects of such interpo-
sition in stirring up the lukewarm, could it fail to produce fruits which
would prove fatal to harmonious action in religious education ? These are
grave questions, and demand and, your remonstrants doubt not, will
receive mature and careful consideration. They' did not escape the dis-
cerning mind of the Superintendent, but he contends that the apprehended
consequences will not ensue, because the records of his department do not
afford evidence of any difficulty in relation to religious instruction in the
district schools of the State. As regards the fact, he is doubtless correct,
but the inference he draws is inconclusive and unsafe. The cause of diffi-
culty is found, in this city, to an extent that is unknown elsewhere, but will
most assuredly be felt, sooner or later, wherever its influence can be made to
reach. Already the books in the district school libraries, which have been
officially approved by the Superintendent of Common Schools and his pre-
decessors, are vehemently attacked, and for the reasons which are adduced
against those used in the public schools of this city.

The report concedes that the power of determining the kind and degree
of religious instruction which shall be given in public seminaries, must rest
with the majority, and that the only hope of the minority is in the " gener-
ous forbearance of those who may temporarily have the physical power to
oppress ; " and it is worthy of special observation, that this acknowledged
principle is virtually, in substance if not in form, carried out in this city.

A vast majority of the people are well satisfied With the system of pub-
lic education which now exists, as is abundantly evinced by the decided
manner in which they sustain it through their immediate representatives, to
which it has been subjected under every form of attack. The city, after all,
is one large district, in which the majority prevails over the minority. It
would be the same in the school districts : each would have its minority,
who would be required to yield, and throw itself upon the " generous for-
bearance " of the majority.

No good reason occurs to show why a member of the minority in a small
mass would be any better reconciled to his condition than if he belonged to
the minority in the large mass. This difficulty is inseparable from any sys-
tem of general education so long as religious opinions are blended with it, '
and people continue to reside together without regard to religious profes-
sions.

In relation to the generous forbearance adverted to in the report, your
remonstrants will take occasion to say, in addition to what has been before
submitted, that the exertions which have been used and the overtures which
have been made to protect the rights of the minority, by those to whom the
majority have seen fit, however indirectly, to intrust the subject, may safely
challenge a comparison with any thing on record.

MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE. 419

The trustees of the public schools yielded many points to the minority,
and perhaps even more than public sentiment would have sustained them in.

In relation to the last effort to reconcile the minority to the public school
system, the committee of the Board of Aldermen, under whose mediation it
was done, say, in their report (Document No. 40, p. 568), that they are fully
of the opinion that, to have yielded more, " would render the school system
liable to the charge of violating the rights of conscience " a charge which
would be fatal to the system, because it would invalidate its just claims to
public patronage.

The propositions of the committee who represent the Public School
Society appear to us to have been conceived in a liberal spirit ; and your
committee think they go as far as a due regard to the objects of the institu-
tion would warrant, and would seem to open an avenue which we would
fain hope may yet lead to a satisfactory arrangement.

Among the reasons assigned in the Superintendent's report for the non-
attendance of so many " vagrant children," is " an idea," said to be " preva-
lent among the people, that an attempt is made to coerce them, directly or
indirectly, to do something which others take great interest in having done.
They are not left or called upon to act spontaneously, to originate any thing,
or take any part in matters which they are told most deeply concern them-
selves."

Of the existence of any such cause your remonstrants are entirely igno-
rant, nor do they believe any such feelings exist

Is it probable that persons who are so utterly indifferent to the present
and future welfare of their offspring, as to permit them to become vagrants,
could be influenced by any such considerations ? Or, if it be possible that
there are those who keep their children from school, and yet permit them to
" infest " the streets as " vagrants," because they are not permitted to " take
any part " in the management of the schools, what beneficial results could
be hoped for from. the " spontaneous" action of such persons, or from any
plans or movements which might " originate " with them ? Your remon-
strants confess that they are unable to perceive the force or propriety of this
reasoning.

Having with frankness, and with the respectful freedom which our insti-
tutions secure to the citizen, noticed the most prominent parts of a public
document which treats of a subject of deep and abiding interest to all, your
remonstrants conceive that they cannot, in justice to themselves or the cause
they have espoused, omit to notice some incidental parts of said document.

In alluding to the memorials presented at the present and last session of
the Legislature, one is said to be from " Catholic citizens ; " thereby convey-
ing the idea, or at least leaving it to be inferred, that the other was not.

It is not pretended that every signer of all these memorials was a Catho-
lic ; but nothing can be hazarded by asserting that each and every one of
them was essentially, and in fact, a Catholic petition.

At no time since the decision of the Common Council in 1824, which
excluded Church schools, has there been, either in this city or elsewhere,
any other class of citizens who appeared in opposition to the public school

420 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

system of instruction, under the control of your remonstrants. These citi-
zens have, of course, the same rights tbat appertain to every other class ; but
it is of some importance that this fact should be correctly understood.

Your remonstrants are not aware of any error in the detailed history of
the Public School Society which is given in the report ; but they are unable
to discover its object, or the bearing it has on the merits of the question
under discussion. The report says, that more than one million of dollars
has been paid to the trustees of the Society since 1813, while only
$125,268.57 have been paid to other societies or schools. This statement is
probably correct, but no attempt is made in the report to draw an inference
of any kind from the premises. It is not pretended that the funds have
been misapplied, or that the other societies, whose comparatively small
share is thus presented to view, would have made a better use of the money.
Your remonstrants must say, however, that this part of the report should, in
their opinion, have been made to embrace other highly important facts
which are intimately connected with it. One is, that, of th amount re-
ceived by the Public School Society, more than one half was derived from a
direct tax on this city, which was petitioned for at the instance 'of your
remonstrants, by several thousands of the largest tax-paying citizens, with a
full knowledge of the manner in which it was then disbursed, and, as your
remonstrants have occasion to know, with a confident expectation that it
would continue to be so disbursed, or that it would not, in any event, be
devoted to the support of sectarian schools. It was also essential to a cor-
rect appreciation of the subject, to have stated, that more than one third of
the amount paid to the trustees of the public schools was necessarily ex-
pended in the purchase of land and in the erection of school buildings ;
that this land and buildings are still in existence, and form, together, a
proud monument of the liberality of our citizens. Documents referred to
in the report state these facts ; and in more than one of them it is announced
that the fee of this property has been repeatedly tendered to the municipal
government.

The surprise that no mention should be made of the investments in
school-buildings is increased from observing that, in the report made by the
Superintendent during the present session (Document No. 90), in answer to
a call of the Senate, it is shown that the sum of $138,563.44 has been
invested by your remonstrants in land and school buildings within the last
five years.

In relation to the pay system which the report embraces, it is proper to
state that it was practised during several years in the public schools of this
city, and was found to be an unceasing source of deceptions, jealousies, and
dissatisfactions. The mean-spirited and sordid would plead poverty with-
out just cause ; while the generous and noble-hearted would make great
efforts and unreasonable sacrifices to sustain a commendable feeling of inde-
pendence. In the city of New York, with its mixed and constantly moving
population, it was impossible to discriminate, with even an approach to
accuracy, between those who should pay and those who should be exempt ;
and every mistake caused deep and wide-spread discontent.

MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE. 421

But a difficulty far more formidable had to be encountered, in carrying
out the mixed plan of pay and exemption. It was found impossible to con-
ceal the distinction from the children, and it consequently gave rise to a
classification that disturbed the harmony of the schools, while it is eminent-
ly opposed to the genius of our political institutions. The amount received
from pay scholars diminished each succeeding year, and the trustees were
finally induced to place all the children upon that footing of equality which
comports so entirely with the feeling which pervades the public mind. The
consequence is, that the poorest citizen, instead of being required to solicit
the admission of his children into the public schools on the free list, is ena-
bled to demand their admission as a right, and on the same terms with those
of his more prosperous neighbor.

The people of this city have seen fit to furnish the means of breaking
down the odious distinction between the rich and the poor, and the question
is respectfully submitted, Why should the State interpose to restore it ?

After the foregoing statements, remarks, and reasonings in relation to
the report of the Superintendent of Common Schools were prepared, your
remonstrants received a copy of Document No. 565, being "An Act to
Extend the Benefits of Common School Education in the City of New
York ;" and they are surprised to find that it does not bear even a remote
resemblance to the plan proposed in the late report of the Superintendent.

Your remonstrants would be wanting in the open frankness due to the
Senate- of this State, and to the importance of the subject, if they should
withhold an expression of the conviction forced upon them, that this act,
if not framed with that view, will inevitably embrace the schools connected
with the Roman Catholic churches in this city. The claims of these Church
schools to a portion of the school money have been again and again refused
to the parties on their direct application to the municipal government, and
with a degree of unanimity scarce ever shown on any other occasion ; and
yet this bill is so constructed, that it will accomplish that end by indirect
means. It would, in the opinion of your remonstrants, be a serious error to
suppose that Catholic citizens would be permitted to enjoy the benefits of
this bill without opposition. Even a slight knowledge of the feeling which
prevails among persons connected with our various religious denominations
would serve to show that public education in this city would soon be thrown
into utter confusion, by efforts to counteract what would be considered by
many a dangerous means of influencing and moulding the tender minds of
youth.

The bill appears to your remonstrants to be liable to the same objections
which have been urged against the plan proposed in the report of the
Superintendent, on account of its tendency to connect itself with party poli-
tics ; and to this may be added the danger, if not the necessity, of an alli-
ance of politics with religion.

If, as will most assuredly happen, a struggle arises to plant schools with
a view to sectarian influence, it must be seen that, in order to secure the
favor of the commissioners, whose right it will be to determine between
conflicting claimants, this process must be commenced at the ballot-boxes.

422 TEE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Besides the Catholic Church schools, there are a number of schools connect-
ed with other denominations of Christians, and all these will be immediately
placed within the reach of this law. Can it be expected is it reasonable
to expect that the people of this city, who have asked for and have cheer-
fully paid the special tax for the support of public schools, will be content
to continue its payment when the proceeds are appropriated to the support
of sectarian schools schools in which the conscientious opinions and feel-
ings of many must be daily and hourly violated ? Is it a sufficient answer
to this to say. that the field is open to all ? Your remonstrants think not.

There are a number of small congregations to whom it may be incon-
venient, or who may not choose, in consequence of the scattered manner in
which their members reside, or who from other causes may decline opening
schools of their own, and whose conscientious feelings are entitled to the
same protection and consideration of those of the more numerous classes.
There is also a very large class of citizens who, while they acknowledge the
importance of religion in bridling the fierce and dangerous passions of the
human heart, will view with jealous apprehension the first step toward an
association of religion with politics. They cordially unite with the senti-
ment expressed in the report of the Superintendent of Common Schools,
" that religious worship has been better provided for, and attendance upon
it has been more general, by being left to the free and voluntary action of
the people, without the aid of any legal establishment ; " and they are well
aware that, of all means for securing attachment to a particular form of
religion, and a blind devotion to it through life, the most effectual is, to
cultivate it in the tender and susceptible mind of youth ; and hence they
never can consent to be taxed for sectarian establishments of any kind,
whether for adults or for children. ,

The municipal government has been most cordially sustained in its
repeated rejection of plans which differ from the proposed law only in being
more direct, and a confident belief is indulged that the Legislature of the
State will not impose upon the city a measure to which it is so averse.

If the act under consideration is viewed entirely apart from the objec-
tions stated above, it will be found to conflict in important particulars with
the theory and reasoning of the Superintendent of Common Schools to even
a greater extent than the system which now prevails.

It is contended, in the report, that, to devolve upon a private corpora-
tion the discharge of an important function of government, to give to those
who are not directly responsible to the people the right of disbursing public
moneys, the selection of teachers of whose qualifications they are the sole
judges^nd the establishment and maintenance of a system of public edu-
cation according to their own ideas of propriety, is an anomaly wholly
unknown in any other department of the public service, and involves a prin-
ciple so hostile to the whole spirit of our Institutions, that it is impossible
it should be long sustained, when other and more congenial means of
obtaining the same objects have been pointed out.

These and other consequences, which have been shown to be fallacious,
are predicated of the public school system in this city, and it now remains

MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE. 423

to consider how far they are obviated, if at all, by the project submitted to
your honorable body. The act proposes the election of school commission-
ers by the people, in place of their being appointed by the Common Conn-,
oil, as is now done ; a change which may be made, if thought expedient,
without disturbing any other portion of the present public school plan.
But the very next provision of the act is at open war with the principles
laid down in the report as being of vital importance, and such as the spirit
of the age will not endure to see disregarded. It provides, virtually, that
any number of inhabitants of this city who shall desire to establish a
school, may present an application to the commissioners, who are author-
ized, if they consider such persons adequate to the support of a school, and
if a school be required in the place specified, to grant a certificate thereof ;
when all such associations shall " possess all the rights and powers conferred
by law upon the inhabitants of school districts in any other parts of the
State." In short, every such association, of any number of persons, is made
a private corporation for the purposes specified, and is entitled to its rata-
ble portion of the public money.

In the plan of the Superintendent of Common Schools, the commisssiou-
ers elected by the people were to organize and establish schools where they
appeared necessary, as district schools, with the usual officers, to le chosen by
the inhabitants of the district. The two plans, it will thus be seen, conflict
directly with each other in a most essential particular.

While the Superintendent throws around his scheme those defences and
safeguards which he says are called for by the spirit of the age and the
nature of our institutions, the act now pending confers upon any number,
however small, of persons who may associate for the purpose, and without
being elected by, or, in any greater degree than your remonstrants are,
amenable to the people,. the duty of discharging what is declared to be one
of the most important functions of the Government.

The report objects to the association represented by your remonstrants,
on the ground of its " want of responsibility to the people," and yet the
proposed law contemplates the creation of an indefinite number of associa-
tions for the same object, equally independent of the people, and it is not
discovered but that each one will be as obnoxious to the principles laid
down in the report as the Society to which such strong exceptions have been
taken. It will be seen that the city will have to depend for the means of
general education on accidental and capricious circumstances.

Some portions may be crowded with schools, while others may be left
destitute ; and inasmuch as the associations will be required to receive pay
from those who can afford it, there is no little danger that portions of the
city where schools are most needed will be left without them.

In short, it appears evident to your remonstrants that, under the pro-
posed law, feelings and motives of the most discordant character will be
brought into action in establishing and maintaining schools, and will be
made to supersede those which have hitherto prevailed, and which, what-
ever else may be thought of them, have been directed to the one important
object of promoting the moral and literary education of the youth of the city.

424: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The act imposes upon teachers, trustees, and commissioners, duties so
intricate and arduous that they never will be performed. As regards the
duties required of teachers, in addition to those attached to the profession,
your remonstrants feel authorized, from a long-continued and intimate
acquaintance with the subject, to say that they cannot be discharged with-
out sacrificing far more pressing and important interests.

The report provides that the Board of Commissioners elected by the
people shall establish schools and a system for their government and inspec-
tion, and for providing the means of testing the qualifications of teachers.
But in the act under consideration, all these points are left to the discretion
of any number of inhabitants of lawful age, and adequate to the support
of a school, who may desire to establish one. It is not, perhaps, the prav-
ince of your remonstrants to contrast the provisions of the projected law
with the principles contended for in the report of the Superintendent ; but
it appeared to be so intimately connected with the deeply interesting sub-
ject of common schools that it could not be well omitted.

It will be seen that much of the reasoning which has been applied to the
system in the report is applicable to that which is embraced in the act, and
particularly such parts as refer to the importance of uniform schools
throughout the city a point which never can be abandoned without the
most disastrous consequences. This objection will apply to the provisions
of the act with increased force. To the existing public schools it would be
equally if not more fatal than the system proposed in the report.

Its practical operation must, therefore, be viewed as embracing the whole
city.. Considered in this light, if the extra duties imposed upon teachers by
this act are executed at all, it must be at the expense of the best interest of
the pupils, or a supernumerary teacher must be employed to perform them.

This remonstrance has been extended far beyond. the limits contemplated
at the commencement ; for which the only apologies that can be offered are
the high importance of the subject of which it treats, and the deep and
abiding interest which your remonstrants feel in that subject.

In conclusion, they would remark, that they have no private ends to
answer, in opposing either the plan of the Superintendent of Common
Schools, or the act presented, but not'sanctioned, by the committee.

A careful examination of both has produced a clear and firm conviction
that the former, however plausible it may appear, is not adapted to the
peculiar circumstances of this city ; and that the latter is ill-digested, and
displays throughout an absence of that experimental knowledge of the mat-
ter which is indispensable to a successful result.

Your remonstrants are persuaded that the public schools of this city
accomplish all that can be accomplished with the same pecuniary means ;
and that they are as free from any just cause of dissatisfaction to any class
of citizens as human ingenuity can make them. Under these impressions,
they feel bound to remonstrate against the proposed changes. But the same
feelings and the same sense of duty which have led them to make no incon-
siderable sacrifice of personal interest, comfort, and convenience, in sustain-
ing the present system of public instruction, would cause them to yield

MEMORIAL AND REMONSTRANCE.

425

cheerfully to any other system which the people and the constituted author-
ities of the State may see fit to substitute for it. If a better can be devised,
they will, as far as they can, lend their aid in sustaining it.

ROBERT C. COEXELL, President.
A. P. HALSET, Secretary.

present Board of Trustees :
Timothy Hedges,
Robert Hogan,
Jacob Harsen,
John R. Hurd,
John W. Howe,
John Jay,
Shephard Knapp,
Hiram Ketchum,
Charles Oakley,
George Pardow,
James Palmer,
Anson G. Phclps,
Pelatiah Perit,
Thompson Price,
Richard Paige,
Charles E. Pierson, M.D.,
George Pessinger,
James 0. Pond,
William Rockwell, M.D.,
J. Smyth Rogers, M.D.,
James I. Roosevelt, Jr.,
Peter A. Schermerhorn,
Henry H. Schieffelin,
Henry M. Schieffelin,
Joseph Stuart, M.D.,
Samuel W. Scton,
Linus W. Stevens,
Willett Seaman,
Thomas L. Servoss,
Burritt Sherwood, M.D.,
Reuben Spencer,
William Smith,
James Stokes,
Najah Taylor,
George T. Trimble,
Isaac P. Trimble, M.D.,
Gulian C. Verplanck,
Joseph Washburn,
Benjamin R. Winthrop,
Edmund Willets,
Samuel Willets,
Abm. V. Williams M.D.

ORK, May 21, 1841.

The following are the names of the
John T. Adams,
Stephen Allen,
Augustin Averill,
Micah Baldwin,
Caleb Bartlett,
Meigs D. Benjamin,
George W. Betts,
William Birdsall,
James B. Brinsmade,
James H. Blaisdell,
Thomas Bussing,
Abm. R. Lawrence,
Richard M. Lawrence,
James M'Brair,
William H. Macy,
William Mandeville,
Samuel F. Mott,
Liudley Murray,
Abner Mills,
John Morrison,
William D. Murphy,
Wm. W. Chester,
Samuel R. Child?,
Lyman Cobb,
Joseph B. Collins,
Peter Cooper,
I. T. Cornell,
Joseph Curtis,
Edward W. Cleavelaud,
Albert Chrystie,
Mahlon Day,
Samuel Demilt,
Henry E. Davies,
Frederic De Peyster,
James F. De Peyster,
Charles Durfee,
Asahel A. Denman,
Benjamin Ellis,
Edward Ferris,
John Groshon,
Samuel Griffing,
Lewis Hallock,
.Edmund Haviland,

426 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

On Saturday, May 22d, Mr. Verplanck moved that all, orders
of business preceding the bill relative to common schools in New
York be suspended, and that the Senate resolve itself into com-
mittee on the said bill. The motion was agreed to, and, after
some time spent in debate and making amendments, the com-
mittee rose, and reported the same to the Senate. On motion
of Mr. II. A.. Livingston, the bill was laid on the table.

On Tuesday, the 25th, the Senate proceeded to the considera-
tion of the report of the Committee of the Whole, when an
interesting and animated debate ensued, which was terminated
bv a motion of Mr. Robert C. Nicholas, that the farther consid-

eration of the said report be postponed until the first Tuesday in
January following.

The President put the question on agreeing with the said
motion, and it was decided in the affirmative, by the following
vote :

Ayes Messrs. Denniston, Ely, Foster, Furman, Hull, Hum-
phrey, Johnson, H. A. Livingston, Nicholas, Rhoades, Taylor
11. "

Nays Messrs. Dickinson, Hopkins, Hunt, Lee, Moseley,
Paige, Scott, Sibley, Strong, Yerplanck 10.

The defeat of the bill was unexpected by the advocates of
change, and their disappointment and chagrin was not in any
way concealed. Meetings were held, and Bishop Hughes made
a very elaborate speech, reviewing the argument of Mr. Ketch-
urn, which occupied the three evenings of June 16th, 17th, and
21st, in its delivery. The place selected was Carroll Hall,
Thomas O'Connor, Esq., being appointed chairman, and Bernard
O'Connor, secretary.

The Senate was then in session in the city of New York in
its judicial organization as the Court of Errors, and the Hon.
Luther Bradish, Lieutenant-Governor, and several of the sena-
tors, were present on the first evening.

Bishop HUGHES spoke as follows :

3In. CHAIRMAN. AND GENTLEMEN : The subject of education is one which
at this time agitates, more or less, every civilized nation. If we look across
the ocean, we find it the subject of discussion in France, in Prussia, in Hol-
land, in Belgium, in Ireland, and even in Austria. It is not surprising, then,
that this subject, which haa but lately attracted the attention of govern-
ments and of nations, should become one of deep and absorbing interest.

SPEECH OF BISIIOP HUGHES. 427

But of all these nations there is, perhaps, not one .which has placed educa-
tion on that basis on which it is destined successfully, in the end, to repose.

In countries in which the inhabitants profess the same religion, whatever
that religion may be, the subject is deprived of many of its difficulties. But
in nations in which there is a variety of religious creeds, it has hitherto been
found one of the most perplexing of all questions, to devise a system of
education which should meet the approbation of all. This subject has
engaged the attention of our own Government. In every State of the Union
it has already been acted upon more or less fully. And in all these
instances, whether we regard Europe, or regard this country, we find that
there is not a solitary instance in which religion, or religious instruction in
a course of education, has been proscribed, with the exception of the city
of New York. And this proscription of religion in this city is not an act"
of public authority. There is no statute authorizing such an act ; it has
been the result rather of an erroneous construction put upon a statute, and
which has been acquiesced in, rather than approved, for the last sixteen
years. In the operation of that system, Catholics felt themselves virtually
excluded from the benefits of education. Very shortly after that construc-
tion of the law was adopted, they felt themselves obliged to proceed in the
best way that their poverty would allow for the education of their children.
And, whilst they have been taxed with the other citizens, up to the present
hour they have received no benefit from the system supported by that taxa-
tion ; but, on the contrary, after having contributed what the law required,
have been obliged to throw themselves back upon their own resources, and
provide, as well as they might, the means of educating their children.

We Jiave, from time to time, complained of this state of things. It has
frequently been brought before the notice of the public. A Society pro-
fessedly the friend of education having exercised supreme control over 1 the
whole question, we had no resource but to apply to that tribunal, which the
law had authorized to use its discretion in distributing the money set apart
for the purposes of education. We always insisted, in good faith, that the
object the benevolent object of this Government was the education of
the rising generation, and we never conceived that the question of religion,
or no religion, had entered into the minds of those philanthropic public
men who first established this system for the diffusion of knowledge. We
applied, as I have remarked, at different times, to the tribunal to which
allusion has been already made, and did so even till a very recent period,
because, before we could apply to the Legislature of the State, it was
requisite to comply with the forms prescribed, and that we should be first
rejected by the Common Council of this city, to whom the State Legislature
had delegated the discretionary power to be exercised in the premises. That
course was regarded necessary, and we adopted it. The result was as we
anticipated denial of our request ; and then it was that we applied to the
Legislature of the State ; submitted to them the grievances under which we
labored, in the full confidence that there we should find a remedy.

Both before the Common Council and the Senate of this State, the means
which have been taken to defeat the proper consideration of our claims have

428 TUB PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

been such as we could not have anticipated in a country where the rights of
conscience are recognized as supreme. The test has been put, not as to
whether \ve were proper subjects for education, but whether we were Catho-
lics ! And in the course of the examination on which I am about to enter, I
shall have occasion to show that, from the beginning to the end, the one
object of the members of the Public School Society has been, to convince
the public that we were Catholics ; and they, it would appear, calculate as
the consequence, that, if we were Catholics, then we had no right to obtain
redress, or hope for justice.

In the course of my remarks I shall be obliged to refer to distinctions in
religion, the introduction of which into the discussion of this question is
ever to be much regretted. I shall have to speak of Catholics and of Prot*
estants ; and when I do so, let it be understood that I do not volunteer in
that, but the course pursued by that Public School Society has imposed
upon me the necessity to refer to these religious distinctions ; and, in doing
so, I trust I shall be found to speak of those who differ from me in matters
of religion with becoming respect. I am not a man of narrow feelings. I
am attached sincerely and conscientiously to the faith which I profess, but I
judge no man for professing another. In the whole of my intercourse with
Protestants, my conduct has been such, they will be ready to acknowledge,
in Philadelphia and elsewhere, that I am the last man to be accused of big-
otry. But I feel that I should be unworthy of that estimation that the
denomination to which I belong would be unworthy of sustaining that posi-
tion which they are ambitious to occupy in the opinion of their fellow-citi-
zens of other, creeds, if they were to submit to the insult added to the injury
inflicted on them by these men. I, for my own part, feel indignant at the
recent attempt made to cast odium upon us and our cause ; and it is because
that turns entirely on the question of religion, that I shall be obliged to
speak of Catholics and of Protestants, and refer to those distinctions which
should never have been introduced.

Before taking up the report pf the Secretary of State, I shall refer briefly
to the conclusion of the discussion before the Common Council. There we
had, as you will recollect, legal gentlemen and reverend gentlemen, advo-
cates of the Public School Society, who had studied the question in all its
bearings volunteers and associates and colleagues on the same side ; and,
throughout that debate, the ground taken by them was, that, if our petition
were granted, favors would be conferred on us as a religious denomination,
tending to that against which all the friends of liberty should guard a
union of Church and State. So long as that idea was honestly entertained
by these gentlemen, I could respect their zeal in opposing us. But that idea
has disappeared, and yet their opposition has become more inveterate than
ever.

The very last sentence of the speech of Mr. Ketchum before the Common
Council of the city of New York was a declaration that this Society, so far
from desiring a collision of this kind with us, were men of peace, to whom
even the moral friction of the debate was quite a punishment ; that, for
them, it would be a relief if our system of education were assimilated, in its
external aspect, to that of the State. I will read his own words :

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 429

Now, perhaps, the gentleman may ask, if the system is to be changed,
that we should resort to the same course as is pursued in the country, where
the people elect their own commissioners and trustees. But if we do, the
schools must be governed on the same principles as these, and the only dif-
ference will be in the managers. And if it is to come to that, I am sure
these trustees will be very willing, for it is to them a source of great vexa-
tion to be compelled to carry on this controversy for such a period.

They are very unwilling to come here to meet their fellow-citizens in a
somewhat hostile manner. They have nothing to gain, for the Society is no
benefit to them, and they give days and weeks of their time, without recom-
pense, to the discharge of the duties of their trust.

I shall not now praise that Society. I have more than once given my
full assent to eulogiums on their zeal and assiduity ; but Mr. Ketchum
praises them, and they praise themselves, and at this period of the contro-
versy they are entitled to no praise from the thousands and thousands of the
poor neglected children of New York, whom their narrow and bigoted views
have excluded from the benefits and blessings of education.

I shall now, before proceeding farther, take up the report of the Secre-
tary of State, and commence with that portion of it in which he gives a
brief sketch of the origin of this Society :

The Public School Society was originally incorporated in 1805, by chap-
ter 108 of the laws of that session, which is entitled, " An Act to Incorpo-
rate the Society instituted in the City of New York, for the establishment
of a free school for the education of poor children who do not belong to, or
are not provided for by, any religious society." In 1808, its name was
altered to " The Free-School Society of New York," and its powers were
extended " to all children who are the proper subjects of a gratuitous edu-
cation." By chapter 25 of the Laws of 1826, its name was changed to " The
Public School Society of New York ; " and the trustees were authorized to
provide for the education of all children of New York not otherwise pro-
vided for, " whether such children be or be not the proper subjects of gra-
tuitous education," and to require from those attending the schools a mod-
erate compensation ; but no child to be refused admission on account of
inability to pay.

Thus, by the joint operation of the acts amending the charter of the
Society, of the statutes in relation to the distribution of the school moneys,
and of the ordinance of the Common Council designating the schools of the
Society as the principal recipients of those moneys, the control of the pub-
lic education of the city of New York,, and the disbursement of nine tenths
of the public moneys raised and apportioned for schools, were vested in this
corporation. It is a perpetual corporation, and there is no power reserved
by the Legislature to repeal or modify its charter. It consists of members
who have contributed to the funds of the Society ; and, according to the
provisions of the last act, the payment of ten dollars constitutes the con-
tributor a member for life. The members annually choose fifty trustees,
who may add to their number fifty more.

He goes on to describe its different acts, by which its name and other
attributes were changed, until, from being a Society to take charge of the
children that were not provided for by any religious society, they came to
have the control of the whole system of education in New York. The
report informs us that the members of the Public School Society are so by
virtue of a subscription of ten dollars ; that they elect fifty trustees ; that
these fifty trustees have a right to appoint fifty others, and then the number

430 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

is completed ; that the city Council are members cx-officio. And this will,
perhaps, go a great way in explaining the unwillingness of the Common
Council to grant our petition.

The Society were so constituted, that, when we went before the Common
Council, we virtually went before a committee of the Society.

In this state of things, the Governor of this State, with a patriotism and
benevolence that entitle his name to the respect of every man that has
regard for humane feeling and sound and liberal policy, declared for a sys-
tem that would afford a good common education to every child. And,
though I have never before spoken in public the name of that distinguished
officer of the State, I do now, from my heart, award to him my warmest
thanks, and those of the community to which I belong, for the stand he has
taken on this subject. An attempt has been made to victimize him because
he favored Catholics because he dared to manifest a humane and liberal
feeling toward foreigners. He survived that shock, however ; and a recent
excellent document from him, showing that he is not any longer a candidate
for public favor, authorizes me to say, in this place, that every man who
loves his country and the interests of his race, no matter what may be his
politics, will cordially render the tribute of esteem and praise to that Gov-
ernor Seward.

Governor Seward knew too well the deep-seated prejudices of a large
portion of the community not to feel that he had nothing to gain by being
the advocate of justice to Catholics. But, whatever may be that distin-
guished statesman's future history, whatever his situation, however much
thwarted and opposed, and perchance, for a moment, partially defeated by
those who call themselves the friends of education, it will be glory enough
for him to have inscribed upon his monument, that, whilst Governor of New
York, he wished to have every child of that noble State endowed and
adorned, in mind and intellect and morals, with the blessings of education.

When, therefore, we presented, as every oppressed portion of the commu-
nity has a right to do, our grievances to the honorable Legislature of the
State, these gentlemen, who are represented by Mr. Ketchum, through a
speech of nine mortal columns, as the humble almoners of the public char-
ity these men, who are burdened -with their load of official duty, which
they are willing, Mr. Ketchum says, to put off pursue us thither with un-
abated hostility. We supposed that the Public School Society would acqui-
esce in the justice of the plan of the Secretary. No ! these humble men, all
zeal for the cause of education, enter the halls of legislation with a deter-
mined spirit of opposition to us, which is, perhaps, unparalleled, consider-
ing the circumstances under which they acted.

One of the most difficult points in treating with these gentlemen is, to
ascertain in what particular situation, and under w"hat particular circum-
stances, their responsibility may be discovered. They are, it is said, but
agents ; they are wealthy and powerful have every advantage in opposing
humble petitioners as we are. And, with all these advantages, they pre-
sented themselves there, not to dispute the justice of our claims, nor the cor-
rectness of the ground on which the honorable Secretary placed the ques-

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 431

tion before the Senate, but to appeal, even in the minds of senators, to what-
ever they might find there of prejudice against the Catholic religion, and
the foreigner and the descendants of the foreigner.

One of the documents of which they made use was published in the
Journal of Commerce. This question had been, in the Society, made the spe-
cial order of the day for, I think, Friday, the 20th of May. In the Journal
of Commerce of the previous day, there was .published a most calumnious
article, full of all those traditions against our religion which {he minds of
the uneducated portion of some of those denominations inherit ; and the
agent of the Public School Society, sent, as we should understand, to repre-
sent justice and truth between citizens of the same country, is found dis-
tributing this paper all over the desks of the senators ! On that very day
it was supposed that the vote on this very question would be taken, and the
agent of the Public School Society is found supplying the senators for I
have a copy of the papers thus furnished, with the member's name written
at the top, and the article referred to marked with black lines, so that there
could be no overlooking it with an article containing a mock excommuni-
cation, a burlesque invented by Sterne, and inserted in his " Tristram Shan-
dy," but quoted by the Public School Society for I hold it to be their act
till they disclaim it as a part of our creed, and made the ground of a sneer
at the Secretary. " These are precious principles, to be preserved in the con-
sciences of your petitioners ! " Religious prejudice will have its reign in the
world. But it is a low feeling. Especially is it a low feeling in a country
in the fundamental principles of whose government and laws the great
father of our liberties insisted that conscience and religion should be ever
free, and be regarded as above all law. There was to be no toleration, for
that implied the power not to tolerate ; the word was therefore excluded
from the language of American jurisprudence. And, that being the case, it
was painful to find an honorable body of men, as the members of the Pub-
lic School Society are regarded to be, employing such a means of approach-
ing the Senate of New York that Senate to which Justice, if she found not
a resting-place upon the globe, like the dove to the ark, might return, and
expect every hand to be stretched out to receive her.

If they deny that they approached the Senate with that document too
vile and filth'y to be read in this audience ; but if any gentleman has the
curiosity to see it, here (holding up a volume of " Tristram Shandy ") he
may read it word for word let them call their agent to account. We will
not let them rob us of our reputation. We stand ambitious to be considered
worthy of membership in the great American family. Let them not, after
depriving us of the benefit of our taxes, destroy our reputation.

I will now, after this introduction, take up the remonstrance of the Soci-
ety. It is impossible for me not to feel indignant, when I think how these
high-minded men have treated us when I recollect how this same gentle-
man, who acted as their agent, and distributed that calumnious paper, was
once a candidate for office, and gladly received the signatures of Catholics.
And this was the recompense he offered.

I know not by whom this remonstrance was drawn up. I know not

432 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

whether all the members of the Board of Trustees approved of it ; but if
they did, I trust there were no Catholics present. In page 3 of this remon-
strance, which is signet! by the President, " ROBEKT C. CORNELL," we find
the following declaration introductory to the subject :

The Legislature, therefore, in 1813, when the first distribution was made,
very naturally appropriated the amount apportioned to this city to these
schools, in the ratio of the number of children taught in each. This mode
of distribution continued until 1824, when the subject was again brought
before the Legislature by the jealousies, disputes, and difficulties which had
arisen among the recipients, and the conflicting parties presented themselves
at Albany for the purpose of sustaining their respective claims.

Now, in all the foregoing applications in all the reports made by com-
mittees of the Common Council, you will find that there has not been one
in which the subject of religion was not referred to as the ground of the
refusal of our claims in which it was not assumed that the laws were
opposed to giving education-money the public school fund, or any portion
of it to any religious denomination. This principle, it has been pretend-
ed, and the disputes among the sects, led to the alteration of the law, in
1824. But if we refer back to the memorial proceeding from this Society
itself, we will find that no such thing existed at the time. We find that Mr.
Leonard Bleecker sent a memorial at that very period 1824 in which he
says:

It will not be denied, in this enlightened age, that the education of the
poor is enjoined by our holy religion, and is, therefore, one of the duties of
a Christian Church. Nor is there any impropriety in committing the school
fund to the hands of a religious society, so long as they are confined, in the
appropriation of it, to an object not necessarily connected or intermingled
with the other concerns of the Church ; as, for instance, to the payment of
teachers, because the State is sure, in this case, that the benefits of the fund,
in the way it designed to confer them, will be reaped by the poor. But the
objection to the section sought to be repealed is, that the surplus moneys,
after the payment of teachers, is vested in the hands of the trustees of a
religious society, and mingled with its other funds, to be appropriated to
the erection of buildings under the control of the trustees, which buildings
may, and in all probability will, be used for other purposes than school-
houses.

Here was the ground taken, and yet we hear these gentlemen, before the
Common Council, say it was on account of constitutional difficulties and
religious differences ; whereas, it was simply because the money had been
used for an improper purpose.

In page 5 of this remonstrance, this Society takes the ground, in oppo-
sition to the view of its being a monopoly and a close corporation which
it in fact is that the same objection might be urged against hospitals, asy-
lums for the blind, the insane, and the mute, dispensaries, and houses of
refuge ; and they institute a comparison between these institutions and the
public schools.

Now, as to the fact that the Public School Society is a close corporation,
they themselves do not deny that all citizens are excluded except those who
can afford to pay ten dollars for membership. They do not deny that, but

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 433

justify it on the ground that, inasmuch as these are corporations for the
management of such institutions as I have named, the same reason exists for
the constitution of a corporation for, the direction of the public schools.
And where, then, pray, are the rights with which nature, and nature's God,
have invested the parents of these children ? Pray, are they who are held
competent to decide on the gravest questions affecting the interests of the
nation, unworthy to have a voice in the education of their own children ?
And must they resign that to a corporation responsible neither to them nor
to the public in any formal way ? And, pray, are the people of New York
lunatics, that they must have a corporation of keepers appointed over them ?
If the doctrine of this memorial be correct, they are to be so considered.
But there is this difference : they pay taxes for education, and they have a
right to a voice and a vote in the manner in which their money is to be ex-
pended. If the people are to be treated as lunatics, mutes, or inmates of
the House of Refuge, then the argument of the Public School Society is a
good one. I think the comparison instituted in the remonstrance utterly
fails; I cannot dwell longer upon it.

I now come to a charge made against the petitioners :

At one time it was declared, " the public school system in the city of
New York is entirely favorable to the sectarianism of infidelity, and opposed
only to that of positive Christianity ; " that '' it leaves the will of the pupil
to riot in the fierceness of unrestrained lusts," and is " calculated to make
bad and dangerous citizens."

Now, it is true that we did view the Society as being opposed to re-
ligion. There can be no doubt of that. But, if that be true, it is equally
true that the evidence on which we built that conclusion was furnished by
themselves. And how ? In every report of theirs it appears that, if any
thing like a religious society presented itself, that character was enough to
decide them in resisting its application. You will find this evidenced in
their vindication and defence, both by Mr. Sedgwick and Mr. Ketchum.
They contend that what they meant by religious instruction, was not reli-
gious instruction, and so it may be proper for me to enter a little into the
examination of the meaning of these words.

When the trustees make the religious character of a Society the ground
of denying them a portion of their funds, what is it that constitutes the
objection ? They do not decide against the infidel ; for it seems, if the
applicants had divested themselves of a religious character if men of no
religious profession, of no belief in a God or a future state, had presented
themselves, no objection would be made, and, on their own premises, the
trustees would be obliged to concede to their request. What, then, was the
reason of the refusal, except the religious character of the applicants ? And
had we not fair ground here for inferring that they are opposed to religion ?
Examine their reports. Here is one : a report of the Committee on Arts,
Sciences, and Schools, of the Board of Assistants, on appropriating a por-
tion of the school money to religious societies for the support of schools.
This is Document No. 80, and at page 389 we read as follows :

The amount of one hundred and seven thousand dollars,, and upward,
28

43 i THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

as hereinbefore stated, has been raised by annual tax in this city, for pur-
poses of a purely civil and secular character.

Well, if the education is to be purely " civil and secular," is religion
mingled with it at all ? And if religion is not to be mingled with it at all,
then had we not a right to infer, from their own document, that they were
opposed to religion, and brought up the children without any knowledge
of their responsibility to God, or of a future life, or of any of those great
principles of religion on which the very security of society depends ? Were
we not justified in this inference ? They refused our application because we
professed religion ; and had we not a right to keep our children from the
influence of a system of education that attempted to make a divorce be-
tween literature that is, such literature as is suited for the infant mind
and religion, and to give instruction of a " purely civil and secular charac-
ter," for which, we are told, $107,000 had been expended ? How, I ask,
can Mr. Cornell stand up and deny our charge, when such indisputable evi-
dence of its truth is presented by their own documents ?

Did Mr. Cornell, when they defeated us, find fault with the committee
of the Assistants' Board, because they charged the Society with excluding
religion from education ? No ! no ! Enough it was that religious societies
should be defeated, and that they should continue to wield their complex
monopoly. No matter that they were charged with having no religion ; no
matter at all that their education was then described as " purely civil and
secular."

This document goes on :

The appropriation of any part of that sum to the support of schools in
which the religious tenets of any sect are taught to any extent

Well, if you excluded the tenets of all sects, you excluded all religion,
because there is no religion except what is included in the tenets of sects.
I defy you to teach the first principles of religion without teaching the
tenets of sectarianism. Then it was, on the faith of their own documents,
that we charged on them the character which they had assumed, on the
strength of which they had successfully opposed, one after another, all the
denominations who reverence religion.

The document proceeds :

would be a legal establishment of one denomination of religion over

another ; would conflict with all the principles and purposes of our free
institutions, and would violate the very letter of that part of our Constitu-
tion which so emphatically declares that " the free exercise and enjoyment
of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference,
shall forever be allowed in this State to all mankind." By granting a por-
tion of the school fund to one sect, to the exclusion of others, a " prefer-
ence " is at once created, a " discrimination " is made, and the object of this
great constitutional guarantee is defeated ; taxes are imposed for the support
of religion, and freedom of conscience, if not directly trammelled and con-
fined, is not left in the perfect and unshackled state which our systems of
government were intended to establish and perpetuate. No difference can
be perceived in principle between the taxing of the people of England for
the support of a Church establishment there, and the taxing of the people

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 435

of New York for the support of schools in which the doctrines of religious
denominations are taught.

And what are we to infer from this, except that they do not teach
religion at all ? But they have changed their tactics. Tor they have, be it
remembered, two strings to their bow : one for those who have religion, and
one for those who have not ; and so we actually find that, whilst before the
Common Council of New York they are destitute of religion, and give a
"purely civil and secular education," at Albany they can be in favor of
religion.

But there is still further evidence on this point. In page 18 of the
report of the debate before the Common Council, we have the explanation
of Mr. Ketchum, and it was one of the nicest managed points imaginable.
Indeed, I could not but admire the sagacity of that gentleman and his asso-
ciate, Mr. Sedgwick, in steering so adroitly between the teaching of religion
and the not teaching of it, so that they taught it, but yet you must not call
it religion. We put the gentlemen between the horns of a dilemma. We
said, If you do not teach religion, then you are chargeable with making our
common schools seminaries of infidelity ; if you do teach it, then you do
exactly what you say excludes religious societies from a right to participate
in the fund. But these gentlemen, with great skill and critical acumen, and
a little sophistry, were able to steer, by a line invisible to my mind, between
the horns of .the dilemma.

In describing the different kinds of instruction, Mr. Sedgwick says :

But, beyond that, there is still another branch of instruction which is
properly called religious ; and it is because those two phrases" religious "
and " mbral " have been used occasionally without an accurate apprehen-
sion of their signification, that the documents of the trustees have been mis-
construed. But when the term*" moral " education is used, it only means
that education which instructs the children in those fundamental tenets of
duty which are the basis of all religion.

That is to say, you build the roof before you lay the foundation. For
whence, I ask, will men get their knowledge of duty, if not based on a sub-
stratum of religion ? But here, morality, so called, is made the basis of
religion. Well, let us apply this to the schools, and see whether any Chris-
tian parent would submit to have his children placed under such a system.

There is a child at one of these schools. They tell him not to lie ; but
children are inquisitive, and he asks, " Why should I not lie ? " You must
answer, " Because God abominates a lie." There you teach religion. You
explain the reason why the child should not lie that religion requires and
affords the reason of the performance of the duty ; not that the duty is the
basis of religion. It is not enough to tell the child, " You are to speak the
truth, and, when you know and fulfil your duty, then you may learn that
there is a God to whom you are responsible." Washington himself, in his
" Farewell Address," cautioned the nation against the man who would
attempt to teach morality without religion. He says :

Of bll the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man

4:36 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pil-
lars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citi-
zens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect
and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with
private and public felicity. Let it be simply asked, Where is the security
for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligations
desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of jus-
tice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can
be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influ-
ence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and expe-
rience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclu-
sion of religious principle.

Had we not, then, I would ask very respectfully, a right, when every
petition had been rejected on the ground that the petitioners had a religious
belief, to infer that religion formed no part of their system of education,
and that the consequence which we charged upon them, and that Mr. Cor-
nell repudiated with so much horror, inevitably and justly followed name-
ly, that the Public School Society was favorable to the sectarianism of infi-
delity ?

I now go on to show what the Public School Society boast of having
done in our regard. They had offered, in reply to our objections to passages
in their books as, for instance, where it was stated that " John Huss was a
zealous Reformer, but, trusting to the deceitful Catholics, he was taken by
them and burned at the stake" to expunge such objectionable passages
when they were pointed out. They said, " Bishop, we submit our books to
you, and if you will have the goodness to point out any objectionable pas-
sages, we will expunge them." Well, certainly there was something very
plausible and apparently very liberal in this offer. But when the matter
was pressed, it was found that all this was merely the expression of individ-
uals ; there was no guarantee that the boofcs would be amended. Weeks,
months, might be spent in examining the books, and then the approbation
of the board was necessary in order to effect the alteration. Did they say
that it should be given ? Never.

I pass now to another point ; for, observe, I do not at all think myself
called on to say one word in vindication of the able and eloquent and satis-
factory report of the Secretary of State. That is not necessary. The lan-
guage of that document will be its own vindication when the petty sophis-
tries raised against it shall have been long forgotten ; for be assured, gentle-
men, that, whatever may be the temporary opposition to any public measure,
from the moment that there is discovered to be inherent in it of its essence
a principle of justice and equality, its ultimate triumph is certain, and all
the opposition which it encounters will have no more effect on it than that
of the breeze which passes over the ocean, ruffling its surface, but destroy-
ing nothing of the mighty and majestic element which it seems to fret and
disturb.

I take up this, then, not to vindicate the report, but rather in reference
to the insulting attempt, as I will call it, to deprive Catholics of the free
exercise of their own consciences, and the respect and esteem of their fellow-
citizens. In reasoning on the subject, observe the course that is taken by

SPEECH OP BISHOP HUGHES. 437

Mr. Cornell. He enters into a comparison between the schools of the Public
School Society and ours ours, supported in poverty, the humblest that may
be, but still supported in a way sufficient to show our determination not to
give up our rights or relinquish the maintenance and defence of a sound and
patriotic principle. But this gentleman compares these our schools with
theirs on which more than a million of the public money has been expend-
ed, whilst we have been virtually shut out from all benefit from the public
funds, not by any law of the State, but by a vicious interpretation of the
law. He requires us to furnish as perfect a system as they do with the
expenditure of a million of dollars ! He is reasoning with the Secretary,
telling him, in effect, that we are troublesome and designing people, and he
says:

But having in view the stringency with which the same party insisted
on the necessity of religious in juxtaposition with secular education, and the
warmth with which they denounced the public school system when they
saw fit to charge it with excluding religion, and particularly when reference
is had to their avowed dogma, that there is no hope of salvation to those
not of the Roman Catholic Church ; which dogma is now taught in their
schools.

I thank God that the Catholics the long-oppressed of three hundred
years, during which the ear of the world was poisoned with calumnies
against them have now liberty of speech, and ability to exercise it ; and I
call Mr. Cornell to account for what he has here written, and to which he
has affixed his name. He says :

When reference is had to their avowed dogma, that there is no hope of
salvation to those not of the Roman Catholic Church ; which dogma is now
taught in their schools.

The Catholics " avow " every dogma of their religion ; but the two
statements employed by Mr. Cornell are both false. It never was and never
can be a dogma of ours, that there is " no hope of salvation to those not of
the Roman Catholic Church." Neither is that dogma taught in our schools.
This false statement must be accounted for by Mr. Cornell's ignorance of our
doctrine on the one hand, and, on the other, his disposition to injure us. I
call upon him I arraign him before the people of New York, and the Sen-
ate whose confidence he has attempted to abuse, to prove his statement, or
else to retract it.

And here it may be proper for me to explain something of this matter ;
for I know that, in the minds of Protestants, almost universally, there is
that idea ; and that, in the theological language of the Catholic Church,
there is apparent ground for entertaining it. But, at the same time, I do
know that that language, properly understood and fairly interpreted, does
not imply the dogma imputed to us by Mr. Cornell.

It is very true that we believe that out of the true Church of Christ
there is no salvation : first proposition.

It is true that we believe the Catholic Church to be the true Church of
Christ : second proposition.

It is very true that, notwithstanding these propositions, there is no dog-

438 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ma of our creed which teaches that a Protestant may not hope to be saved,
or may not go to heaven. Now, how is this explained ? In this way :
When we speak of the Church, we mean the Church as Christ and His apos-
tles did in the sense that the ordinary means for the salvation of mankind
are the doctrines and institutions which Jesus left on earth, which have all
descended in the Church with our history and our name. This we believe ;
but we do not believe that God has deprived himself, because Be instituted
these things, of the means of saving whom He will. We do not believe
that, on this account, the power of the Almighty is abridged. Hence it is
consistent with our dogmas to believe that God, who is a just Judge as well
as a merciful Father, will not condemn any one for involuntary error. Their
judgment will be individual. They were externally out of the Church ; but
was it by their own will, or the accident of their birth and education in
false religion ? Did they believe that religion to be true in good faith, and
in the simplicity of their hearts ? Were they ready to receive the light and
grace of truth as God might offer it to them ? Then, in that case, though
not belonging to the Catholic Church by external profession, they belonged
to it by their internal disposition.

Consequently, we are not authorized to deny hope of salvation to those
not of the Catholic Church, unless so far as the errors in which they have
been involved have been voluntary and culpable on their part. And this is
no new doctrine, as our opponents would have seen had they consulted the
writings of the highest authorities in our Church. St. Thomas Aquinas,
one of the greatest minds that ever contributed to enlighten the human
race, as Protestants themselves acknowledge, writing in the eleventh or
twelfth century, speaks of a man who is not even a Protestant, but a pagan,
a man who has never heard of Christ or of Christianity ; and he, supposing
that man to be moral, sincere, acting according to the best lights God has
given him, tells us God would sooner send an angel to guide him to the way
of salvation, than that such a one should perish. Such is the sentiment of
St. Thomas Aquinas, expressed in his works ; and his works are approved
of by our Church. How, then, can Mr. Cornell, or any other individual, say
that we enter into judgment respecting those who die out of the pale of our
Church ? I publicly call upon Mr. Cornell to retract or qualify his official
statement.

Sentiments according with these I have quoted from St. Thomas Aquinas,
I have myself preached in the cathedral of New York, and similar ones
have been abundantly proclaimed by others ; and amongst them I would
mention a very distinguished French bishop, then the Abbe Fressinous. In
the third volume of his " Conferences," he has one special sermon on the
subject of exclusive salvation, and he shows that, of all Christian denomi-
nations, there is no one more abounding in charity on this point than the
Catholic Church. The same explanations are to be found in the writings
of Bossuct, St. Francis of Sales, and St. Augustine.* With these facts well

SALVATION OUT OF THK CHURCH. In concluding this simple and brief view of

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 439

known, how did those gentlemen venture to take advantage of their and
our relative situations, and calumniate us when we had no opportunity of
repelling the unfair attack ?

Besides, Mr. Cornell says, " which is now taught in their schools." I
deny the truth of that statement, and demand his authority.

But now, would it, think you, be improper on mypart, considering that
Mr. Cornell is not present, to imitate some of the liberties which he has
taken with us in our absence ?

Throughout this document he has labored to prove that we are Catho-
lics ; and not only that, but to show what our religion is ; though I am
rather at a loss to imagine where he studied Catholic theology, in which, if
he should persevere, I would suggest to him to consult better authorities
than the Journal of Commerce and " Tristram Shandy."

Now, it never occurred to us to ask, Of what religion is Mr. Cornell and
the Public School Society ? The whole ground assumed by them is, that
they are not a " religious society." Well, what are they ? Are they an irre-
ligious society ? Not at all. They are members of churches ; and I have
taken the pains to ascertain that Mr. Cornell is a member of Dr. Spring's
church ; and, if he lectures the Catholics, would it be very wrong in me to
speak of the doctrines of his creed ? Let us look at the Westminster Con-
fession of Faith, the rule of Presbyterian dogma, and see whether Mr. Cor-
nell opens the gates of heaven to all religious denominations. I quote from
the Westminster Confession as adopted and amended in the United States,
and published by Towar and Hogan, Philadelphia, in 1827. In page 111 it
is said :

The visible Church consists of all those throughout the world who pro-
fess the true religion. ,

So, to be a member of the visible Church, you must " profess " the true
faith. " Together with their children." Happy children ! " And this is

the Catholic doctrine, it may be well to state here what is to be correctly understood
of that Catholic sentiment, " Out of the Church there is no salvation."

" We do not pretend to deny (says Mr. Bergier) that there are numbers of men born
ia heresy, who, by reason of their little light, are in invincible ignorance, and, conse-
quently, excusable before God. These, in the opinion of all judicious divines, ought
not to be ranked with heretics." This is the very doctrine of St. Augustine (Epit, 43,
ad gloriam ct alias, n. 1.) St. Paul tells us, in his Epistle to Titus, chap. iii. : " A
man that is a heretic, after the first arid second admonition, avoid ; knowing that he
that is such a one is subverted, and einneth, being condemned by his own judgment."
As to those who defend an opinion, either false or perverse, without obstinacy, and
who have not invented it from a daring presumption, but received it from their parent's
after they were seduced and had fallen into error, if they diligently and industriously
seek for the truth, and if they hold themselves ready to embrace it as soon as they
shall have found it, such as these also are not to be classed with heretics." L. 1, </-
Bafit. contra Donat. c. 4, n. 5.

" Those who fall with heretics without knowing it, believing it to be the Church of
Jesus Christ, are in a different case from those who know that the Catholic Church is
spread over the whole world." L. 4, c. 1, n. \.

" The Church of Jesus Christ may have, through the power of her spouse, chil-
dren and servants. If they grow not proud, they shall have part in his inheritance ;
but if they are proud, they shall remain without." Ibid. c. 16, n. 23.

440 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of
which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation."
Here is another statement of Mr. Cornell :

They are not merely the incidental remarks of the historian, or extracts
from the Holy Scriptures, " without note or comment," to which such strong
exception has been taken in relation to the public schools, but they are such
as ever have, and, in the opinion of your remonstrants, must ever tend, if
sustained by tax imposed upon the anathematized portion of the commu-
nity, to destroy public harmony ; and such as would prove any thing rather
than a " social benefit."

Now, by using the word " anathematized," he conveys the impression
that all out of the pale of our Church are under our anathema. I demand
the proof. I have studied* our holy religion many a day, but never yet have
I discovered any such anathema, and I defy Mr. Cornell to point it out.

Mr. Cornell goes on to say :.

Your remonstrants had supposed that the fact of the Public School Soci-
ety being composed of men professing every variety of religious faith, would
neutralize sectarian tendencies and secure it against abuse.

Now, there is something exceedingly specious in this, but it is, indeed, a
very spurious position. They refuse our application on the ground that we
are a religious society ; and when we then charge them with not being a
religious society, they repudiate it as a stigma on their character. And
what is their remedy ? That they " will neutralize sectarian tendencies by
the variety of the religions that they introduce." How is this ? They are
all members of churches, and that does them honor ; but whenever they
come within the magical circle of their official character, then, like negative
and positive brought together in just proportions, they neutralize each
other. Is this really the position that these gentlemen assume ? How are
the trustees chosen ? In the most beautiful manner ! One or two Catholics
are taken, a Universalist, perchance, and so of other denominations, and
then they say, " We are of all religions ! " You will find that the mass of
the Society belong to one sect, of which little or nothing is said, and that
an odd one is taken from each of the other sects to sanctify their acts.
There is a sufficient majority of one denomination. There is a tendency
and aim which I am not unwilling to proclaim, a secret understanding not
so very secret, either to the effect that, " as there is a large foreign popu-
lation in New York, and mostly Catholic, our liberties would not be safe
unless the interests of Catholics were not neutralized in their education."
We reject that idea with scorn, that Catholics have to learn the principles
of liberty from them. At a period when Protestantism was as little dreamed
of as steam navigation, Catholics were the schoolmasters to the nations of
the world in the principles of liberty. They were Catholics who wrung the
great charter of English liberty from the hands of the tyrant. And was
that their first effort in the cause of freedom ? No. That was only the
written recognition of their rights, which the encroachments of his prede-
cessors had diminished ; and, having thus secured their rights, they main-
tained them down to the period of the Reformation, when their high and

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 441

honorable notions of liberty were trampled in the dust, and were never
restored till the Revolution ; and when that so boasted event in the history
of England took place, it only recognized the rights lost at the period of
the Reformation, which Catholics for centuries before had known and
enjoyed. Let them not say, then, that our religion is inimical to liberty.
That is a reproach which we spurn which we abominate and abhor. We
have nothing to learn from them of human liberty. Their part is to imitate
us ; not ours to imitate them.

If that is the principle referred to, we understand it perfectly well, and
it is of no use for these gentlemen to moot it for the purpose of showing
that our claim should be denied. Was that, indeed, their object ? Not at
all. But their object was, with hands that should have been better em-
ployed, to rake up that wretched remnant of prejudice against us, and pan-
der to the vitiated taste that could relish it.

We see, then, that, so far as this remonstrance is concerned, there is not
one solitary proposition which should for one moment have arrested the
mind of the Legislature. The bill proposed by the honorable Secretary of
State contemplated no special favor. Much as I honor that distinguished
individual, I would not esteem him as I do, if he had, in his bill, proposed
any thing which should have raised us above our fellow-citizens of other
denominations. But the bill only places us on an equality with others ;
with that we are satisfied with nothing less will we ever be satisfied.

But, hitherto, these gentlemen have assumed various shapes. They have
viewed with, self-complacency the beauty of their system ; and as for their
few schools few, in comparison with the number of destitute and unpro-
vided children I have nothing to say against them. I proposed to place
our schools under their direction, so far as regarded their police and man-
agement. But I would not permit them to teach our children that Catho-
lics were deceitful that Galileo was put into the Inquisition, and punished
for the heresy that the earth revolved on its own axis around the sun. That,
and similar statements of partisan writers, long and generally believed,
begin to be better understood. Behind the anti-Catholic credulity in which
they have hitherto been entrenched, there is now going on a deeper and
sounder spirit of criticism, conducted by eminent Protestant as well as
Catholic writers. At the very time of his trial, his doctrine was held and
avowed by eminent cardinals, and the pope himself declared, that, as a
philosophical proposition, it was no heresy. His case is entirely misunder-
stood.

Galileo's crime was not teaching sound philosophy, but bad theology
wishing the Church to declare that his theory was in accordance with the
Scriptures. For reasons like this, I would not allow them to mislead our
children, but was willing to allow the gentlemen the external management
of our schools. They, however, would have universal rule, or none at all.

What has been their panacea for all complaints? To invite the city
Council to visit the schools. And, certainly, I presume it would be impos-
sible to visit their schools without being satisfied with their appearance.
But had I been able to have made my voice heard in the Senate of the State,

442 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

\vhen they made the proposition to visit their schools, I should have pro-
posed something like an amendment. I would have prayed these senators,
in the name of humanity and their country, of all the benevolence that
beats in the human breast, to visit not the schools, but the lanes and alleys
and obscure resorts of the poor neglected children of New York, and there
see, not how much is done, but how much is left undone. These are the
portions of the city tfyat should be visited. It is utterly impossible, owing
to their scattered condition, to learn the numbers of children in this city
who are deprived by these gentlemen of the blessings of education. We
who mingle with the people have the opportunity of learning their dis-
like of this system that they would no more trust their children to it than
to that tyrannical system of British misgovernment which their fathers
knew so well, and from which they derived the sad legacy of ignorance and
poverty. I refer to the laws which made education a crime in. Ireland, and
which have left the inhabitants of that country the degraded but unbroken
people that they are this day, after a persecution of near three hundred
years.

It is for these poor, neglected, uneducated children that I plead. Their
parents will not send them to the public schools whilst constituted as at
present, and I approve of their resolution. I trust that they never will send
their children to schools managed by men who can send to the Senate of
this State a burlesque upon our creed, and represent it as a genuine exhi-
bition of our faith and principles. Rather will we trust to the kind and
merciful providence of God, than voluntarily relinquish a principle by which
we maintain the right implanted in the breast of every parent and secured
by the laws, to have a voice in the education of his child. It is these chil-
dren that should be visited. Then would these honorable senators, whom I
know to be above all these petty prejudices which have been appealed to,
do justice, and apply a remedy so far as the law would authorize them.

I must now soon conclude my remarks for this evening. I will merely
refer to the objection of the Society to the bill of Mr. Spencer : its tendency
to introduce party politics. Every thing is held, in this country, tp be in
the hands of the people; yet these gentlemen, after enjoying a monopoly for
sixteen years, think it a great misfortune if the taxpayers should be allowed
a voice at all in the selection of the teachers in the schools which they sup-
port, or any share whatever in their management.

The next objection to the bill is its want of uniformity. Because they
happen to have school-houses exactly one like the other, and have a uniform
style of books, the large and liberal and statesmanlike plan of the honor-
able Secretary should be given up ; because, forsooth, these " humble almo-
ners " pronounce it void of uniformity. " Humble almoners," who, after
coiling their roots around the Common Council, and making them judges in
the cause, go to Albany to defeat our claims. "Well, they may call them-
selves " humble almoners," if they please ; but they remind me very much
of the beggar in Gil Bias, who, when he asked alms, always took good care
to have his musket ready.

I have now gone briefly through this part of the subject, and I ask you

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 443

whether we can have any confidence in men who can stoop to such artifices
as I have exposed ? I call upon them to vindicate themselves from the dis-
honor of having circulated that document from " Tristram Shandy." It was
done by one of their colleagues and their official agent, who, when charged
with it, replied that he had done so under instructions. What instructions?
Did they instruct him ? If not, let them say so by a public act. Until they
do so, we justly charge them with being the traducers of our reputation. I
charge them on the ground that they are responsible for the act of their
agent ; and they should have known better. Gentlemen claiming to be
exclusively the judges of what is a proper system of education who held
that you are unworthy of having any thing to do with the schools of New
York should have known that that document was from " Tristram Shan-
dy," written, I presume, for his amusement, by Mr. Sterne, who, though
numbered amongst the clergy of the Church of England, was believed to be
an infidel a man who secretly scoffed at every thing sacred, and the work-
ing of whose rank imagination is too offensive for the eye of delicacy.
Surely, then, these gentlemen should not have drawn weapons from such a
source for the purpose of destroying the reputation of any class of their
fellow-citizens. .

This is not the first occasion on which we have been misrepresented ;
and religious gentlemen, whose avowed purpose it is to preach the gospel
of peace, have taken up the habit of abusing us, and have rung the changes
on this topic, till, in some instances, some of their audiences, more liberal
than they, have left the place disgusted. They remind me of a saying of
this same Sterne, who, when quizzing the credulity of the people of Eng-
land: for he was a great wag said that, occasionally, he was straitened for
the price of a dinner, but he could always manage to make a good meal of
Cheshire cheese ; but it also happened that oftentimes he was in a similar
strait in his official capacity, and was called on to preach when he had not a
word of a sermon prepared, and then he took " a fling at popery." The
people went away edified and delighted. For this reason, he says, I call
popery my " Cheshire cheese." It seems to me that the occupants of half
the pulpits of New York are nearly in the same predicament, and would die
of inanimation, were it not that their stock of " Cheshire cheese " is still
unexhausted.

I think I can safely say, that in none of our churches will you hear such
abuse. We never touch upon secular affairs ; you will not even hear from
our pulpits harangues about abolition. We explain and defend our creed,
and, I trust, preach charity and peace and order. But it is not so with
those who assail us as I have described, as I will have occasion to show
when treating of Mr. Ketchum's speech, which I intend to do on to-morrow
evening.

THURSDAY EVENING.

BISHOP HUGHES resumed bis remarks, as follows :
The question, gentlemen, which has called us together, has had two*

444 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

stages of progress, -which must be kept distinct in order to comprehend its
present position. We have, from time to time, applied to the Common
Council of this city for relief, -which we knew they had the power to grant ;
and we had applied, as it were, in an isolated, and, if you please, as to
appearance, in a somewhat sectarian character. The reasons of this will be
easily understood, when you reflect that we had no intention to disturb the
system of education so generally approved by our fellow-citizens. Our
object was not to destroy that which was good for others, if they thought
it so, but to find something that might be equally good for ourselves. Ac-
cordingly, we applied as Catholics, because it appeared that there were no
other denominations whose consciences suffered under the operation of that
system. And we did suppose that these considerations would have had
some weight with the honorable Council. We might as we are re-
proached with not having done we might have interfered with the regu-
lations of these schools asked for a different order of books required the
erasure of such and such passages, and the insertion of others. They
reproach us with not doing so ; but if we had done so, it would, in the first
place, have been pains thrown away ; and, in the second place, we might
thereby have disobliged many of our fellow- citizens of other denominations.
Without our at all pressing the question upon them, farther than observing
that even the reading of the Holy Scriptures, according to the Protestant
version, was looked upon by us as an invasion of our conscientious rights,
they took it up as an objection against the reading of the Scriptures at all,
as if the presence of a Bible within the walls of a school was a thing we
could not bear. It is needless to say how wrong that inference was ; but we
did not at all wish to disturb the Protestant's approbation of his version of
the sacred volume, nor the order that seemed so generally approved ; and
that was the reason of the mode of our application.

In the course of my speech, therefore, you will understand that we did
not so apply for relief because we wished to be apart, separate from the rest
of the community that it was not because we were exclusive or intolerant,
as they have charged upon us, but because we supposed that they would
not wish to have their children hear the Catholic version of the Bible read ;
and therefore they had no right to impose on onr children the hearing of
the Protestant version. If that be sectarianism, then we plead guilty to the
charge ; but, without feeling and acting so, we could not have our con-
sciences simple, and, in their integrity, upright toward God.

When, however, after having gone through the ceremony for it was
nothing else of appearing before the Common Council, and having been
heard and denied, as a matter of course when we had gone through this
ceremony required by the formulary of the law, then, indeed, we threw our-
selves on our 'general rights as citizens, and appealed to that tribunal to
which we must always look with confidence for the redress of every griev-
ance that presses on us in our social condition. Nevertheless, our opponents
followed us there, and fastened upon us the character, in which it had been
the duty imposed on us by necessity, to appear before the Common Council.

We have had occasion already to point out some evidences of the use

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 445

made of that in the remonstrance. You saw with what recklessness of
truth, I am sorry to say, it was charged in that document that we were
intolerant that we taught there was no salvation out of the Catholic
Church, and so forth. There are in that document of the Public School
Society many other passages requiring examination ; but as the substance
of them is contained in the speech of the learned gentleman who was their
official organ before the Senate, I suppose that the refutation of the one will
be the refutation of both, and therefore I deem it unnecessary to refer far-
ther to that memorial.

They that gentleman particularly referred, in the course of the debate,,
to a proposition for accommodation, which was made on the part of the
Society previous to the last decision of the public Council. They alleged
that nothing could be fairer ; but when we had examined that, we found
that of not a solitary grievance of which we had complained did it take
notice not the slightest notice. The whole proposal was, that they should
correct the books, so far as their guardianship of the rights of conscience
for they are conscience-keepers for the several sects in this community !
would allow. They would accommodate us by striking out passages insult-
ing and offensive to our minds and injurious to our children. That was all
the amount of the concession. Then, the second proposition was, that they
would purchase from us they can afford to do so the only school-house
which our humble means have enabled us to erect during the sixteen years
of privation from the benefits of common school education. These were the
only two features that distinguished that offer of accommodation. But Mr.
Ketchum did not find it convenient to read the propositions that we submit-
ted at the same time, and which, candor should have acknowledged, re-
moved from us every imputation of being actuated by sectarian motives, or
having in view the appropriation of the public money to the propagation
of our religion.

I will now commence with the reading of but a small portion of that,
sufficient, however, to show you that, on this ground, so far as information
was concerned, they had it ; and if, with that in their possession, they con-
cealed the truth, and suppressed it, on 'their heads be the responsibility
tnat attaches to such conduct.

What is the great difficulty the legal difficulty ? That public money
cannot be applied to sectarian uses. Very well ; we met that. "We said,
Here are propositions that cover our whole ground :

That there shall be reserved to the managers or trustees of these schools
respectively the designation of the teachers to be appointed, who shall be
subjected to the examination of a committee of the Public School Society,
shall be fully qualified for the duties of their appointment, and of unexcep-
tionable moral character ; or, in the event of the trustees or managers fail-
ing to present individuals for these situations of that description, then indi-
viduals having like qualifications of unexceptionable character, to be select-
ed .and appointed by the Public School Society, who shall be acceptable to
the managers or trustees of the schools to which they shall be appointed ;
but no person to be continued as a teacher in either of the schools referred
to against the wishes of the managers or trustees thereof.

446 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

That was the first proposition ; showing them that, so far as the teachers
were concerned, all we wanted was, men in whom we could place confidence.
The second proposition was :

That the schools shall be open at all times to the inspection of any au-
thorized agent or officer of the city or State government, with liberty to
visit the same, and examine the books used therein, or the teachers, touch-
ing, the course and system of instruction pursued in the schools, or in rela-
tion to any matter connected therewith.

So that there was no concealment there, they themselves should be the
inspectors ; and I will say it boldly, that, if %hey had been actuated by that
deep feeling of humanity for which they claimed credit, they would have
accepted that proposal to take our children under their care, affording to
them the same means of gaining future happiness as they did to others.

The document goes on :

The undersigned are willing that, in the superintendence of their schools,
every specified requirement of any aud every law passed by the Legislature
of the State, or the ordinances of the Common Council, to guard against
abuse in the matter of common school education, shall be rigidly enforced
and exacted by the competent public authorities.

They believe that the benevolent object of every such law is to bring the
means of education within the reach of the child of every poor man, with-
out damaging their religion, whatever it may be, or the religious rights of
any such child or parent.

It is in consequence of what they consider the damaging of their religion
and their religious rights, in the schools of the Public School Society, that
they have been obliged to withdraw their children from them. The facts
which they have already submitted, and which have been more than sus-
tained by the sentiments uttered on behalf of the Society in the late discus-
sion, prove that they were not mistaken.

As regards the organization of their schools, they "are willing that they
should be under the same police and regulations as those of the Public
School Society the same hours, the same order, the same exercises, even the
same inspection.

But the books to be used for exercises in learning to read or spell, in his-
tory, geography, and all such elementary knowledge, as could have a ten-
dency to operate on their hearts and minds in reference to their religion,
must be, so far as Catholic children are concerned, and no farther, such a^
they shall judge proper to put in their hands. But none of their dogmas,
nothing against the creed of any other denomination, shall be introduced.

Reference is here made to the sentiments uttered by the advocates of the
Public School Society in their opposition to our claims before the Common
Council. Many of my present audience were perhaps there, and they can
remember what an array of individuals, otherwise distinguished by their
character what an arrray of bigotry and prejudice, and, we must say, of
profound ignorance, was presented against us. One reverend gentleman
came there, and said, in reference to our objection respecting the Protestant
version of the Bible, that one of our comments taught " the lawfulness of
murdering heretics." Before the Common Council I brought that gentle-
man to account, and I assure you that, considering his gray hairs, and the
respect that is due to age and the sacred character of a minister of peace, I
felt humbled at beholding the degraded position in which he found himself

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 447

before I had done. He had, however, obtained a copy of an old version of
the Scriptures, published by the Catholic refugees in the time of Queen
Elizabeth, who, wishing to prepare the way for an invasion by the Spanish,
wrote a series of notes on the Scriptures, which they thought would tend to
effect that end. So soon, however, as these notes became known in England
and Ireland, they were scouted with horror by all professing the Catholic
name. A few copies of that version, however, remained lost and forgotten,
and an ignorant publisher in Cork, thinking to make a profitable specula-
tion, obtained one of them ; and not knowing as was afterward proved
the difference between it and the authorized version, he undertook to pub-
lish another edition of it. In the process of publication, however, the
character -of the work became known, and the Archbishop of Dublin for-
bade the publication. The publisher was ruined, and he commenced a suit
for damages. The matter was referred to in committees of the House of
Commons and of the House of Lords, and to all the particulars of the case
was, of course, thus given the greatest possible publicity. Well, the pub-
lisher, being deprived of his anticipated sale in Ireland, where the Catholics
would not purchase such a book, thought that, by sending some to this
country, people as ignorant as himself might purchase them, and thus the
work might not prove a dead loss. In this way a copy fell into the hands
of one of these gentlemen ; and what did they do ? Why, about the very
same period that "Maria Monk" was published and I know not but from
the same press they emitted an edition of this Bible, in order to excite
public odium against their Catholic fellow-citizens ! It was then, with a
copy of that in his hand, that that clergyman came forward to prove, by
means of that forgery, that we taught the lawfulness of murdering heretics.
Then, besides that, there was another gentleman, and he, in speaking on the
subject of these very schools, and offering reasons why we should be denied
the benefits of education, instituted a comparison all the others had, with
great professions of respect and benevolent feeling for us, said " it was not
because we were Catholics " that they opposed us ; oh ! no ; they always
qualified it but he instituted a comparison between the religion of Fene-
lon and Voltaire, and with marvellous candor, forgetting the preface, ad-
mitted that he opposed us because we were Catholics ! . This gentleman
said, that, if he had no alternative, he would sooner be of the rejigion of
Voltaire than of that of Fenelon. These are the sentiments to which I
allude, and to which reference is here made, when we say that such senti-
ments are only calculated to strengthen the conviction that our Catholic
children, from the prejudices against their parentage and religion, had no
chance of justice in those schools. The committee to whom was referred an
examination of the schools, make a report, and in that, after quoting the
two propositions for an accommodation, they take occasion to say :

Your committee deem it proper to remark, in vindication of the School
Society, that they were only one of the numerous remonstrants against the
prayer cf the petitioners. Their views were represented at the late discus-
sion' before the board only by their legal advisers, Messrs. Sedgwick and
Ketchum. The other gentlemen who participated in the discussion repre-

448 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

sented other bodies, which are not in any manner connected with them.
Sentiments were uttered by them which the School Society do not entertain,
and for which they are not justly accountable.

So they say ; but by whom ? It would go abroad that this was a decla-
ration from the whole body of the Public School Society. I do not believe
that was the fact, and I have no reason to believe it. Because I do know
that these gentlemen used, or at least admitted this sentiment this bad
sentiment of their associates for the purpose of defeating us, and they
were perfectly satisfied with the victory, without at all disclaiming the dis-
honorable means they had employed to secure it. But as easily could the
English efface the stigma that rests upon them from their employment of
. the Indian's tomahawk during their warfare with America.

And I ask them, Is there on their records a disapproval of the declara-
tion of Dr. Spring or of Dr. Bond ? the one, that we would murder here-
tics, and the other, that the religion of Voltaire was to be preferred to that
of Fcnelon. Have they, in any one official document, disavowed that ? We
challenge them to show that the question of a disclaimer has ever been
mooted. On the contrary, we have reason to believe that they approved of
these statements made by Drs. Spring and Bond, and that from their own
document too, signed by their President and Secretary, which goes nearly
as far. And yet these are the men to whom we are required to give the
management of the education of our children ! They have hedged educa-
tion around with an impenetrable wall, beyond which no applicant from our
body can be admitted, except on terms that violate our civil and religious
rights. A state of ignorance and degradation is the destiny assigned to
those who will not submit to their Procrustean system, to the dimensions of
which all must submit to be adapted.

The Society acknowledge that Messrs. Ketchum and Sedgwick are their
official organs. Well, we find Mr. Sedgwick, in the speech referred to on
last evening, absolutely disclaiming the teaching of religion. He said it
was a mistake to suppose that what was called religious instruction meant
any thing more than simple morality, which he stated to be the basis of all
religion. And do these gentlemen intend to reverse the order of the Al-
mighty, and, by giving this precedence to morality, to say that men must be
good without a motive, and then they may learn religion ? How, then, can
they quarrel with us for saying that they attempted what Mr. Spencer says
well, is impossible to divorce religion from education ? It was on that
ground that they appeared before the Common Council and defeated our
claim ; for, as you saw yesterday, and see to-day, the crime charged upon us,
the disqualifying circumstance, was, that we belonged to a religious society,
and the public money was not to be appropriated in any way except in the
promotion of a " purely civil and secular education." When we told them
that we supposed they were sincere in their declarations, and that, by divorc-
ing religion from education, thus leaving the children without the necessary
motive to virtue and morality, and wholly destitute of any principle to curb
their rising passions, they seemed to exclaim, " Oh ! what an impious set of
men you suppose us to be atheists ! " No, not exactly ; but I accuse you

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 449

of being what you yourselves assume. You defeat all applications made by
applicants professing religion. You contend that religion must not be any
part of State education. Well, then, how can you be dissatisfied if we call
you anti-religious, according to the principles you have yourselves assumed ?
The fact is, that, in order to conciliate those whose minds are haunted by a
certain spectre of a union between Church and State, and in order to bring
them to the support of the Society, they pretended to meet their views ex-
actly ; and then again, on the other hand, attempted to satisfy the scruples
of conscientious parents by playing the several sects one against the other,
and with so much adroitness, that the whole community came to the desired
conclusion that the interests of education and morality were perfectly safe
in the hands of -the Society, and could not be safe in the hands of any
other.

In taking up the speech of Mr. Ketchum, I must premise that he has
divided it into two parts, and that, of the many columns by which it is sup-
ported, the first two or three are occupied with a detailed history of the
legislation, so called, of the Common Council, on this question. Now, I
understand the part of this gentleman who has, perhaps, as deep a knowl-
edge of the mystery of political wire-drawing as any other gentleman of his
profession in the State I understand his introduction of this matter entirely
foreign to the subject. His object was, to impress the mind of the senators
with the idea that, in New York, the question had been decided that the
Board of Aldermen had been changed the position of parties changed
applications had been made from time to time, for sixteen years, and that,
after the gravest reflection, under all possible variety of circumstances, the
answer uniformly was, that it would be a violation of something that he
calls "a great principle" which, however, be does not think proper to
define if our claim were admitted. He wished to convey the idea that, if
there had been any thing just or proper or true in our claims, it could not
have escaped the notice of public officers in New York the immediate rep-
resentatives of the people ; and that, consequently, the senators should
approach the subject with minds already biased and prejudiced against us.
The gentleman wished ,to lead the honorable legislators to say, " What !
shall we, on the examination of one hour, at this distance from the city of
New York, undertake to reverse the judgment sustained by the uniform con-
currence of the various boards that have constituted the public councils of
that city for sixteen years ? " There was great generalship in all that on the
part of the learned gentleman.

But I dispute the principle in toto which the gentleman assumes, and,
before that honorable Senate, I would maintain that the gentleman has no
foundation whatever for his assumption, and that this question should be
viewed by them as if approached for the first time.

And what is my reason for assuming this position ? You will mark, that
the learned gentleman frequently styles the Common Council " the represen-
tatives of the people." My argument in reply, then, is, that, so far as re-
gards this school question, they never were the " representatives of the peo-
ple " for that question never was made one that could affect their election
29

450 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

in the most remote degree. At least, so we thought. So far as we are con-
cerned, we are right. True, whilst we were meeting to study this subject
and bring it under public notice, these gentlemen of the Society were ever
and anon charging us with political designs ; and I recollect something of
an amusing nature connected with that. It was my duty, on the day suc-
ceeding the debate before the Common Council, to proceed to Albany for
the purpose of giving " confirmation." I went ; preached three times on
next day, Sunday. On Monday I drove to Troy, for the purpose of visiting
the churches there; and on Tuesday I returned to this city. Well, what
was the story ? of course, I do not say got up by these gentlemen, nor by
the Public School Society but it was said that I, having taken tea with the
aldermen, a bargain was struck between us, and I was to go to Albany to
get the Catholics to vote against the Governor, and then all would be right.
That was a specimen of the stories that were circulated. But, while we
were thus charged, they who brought the accusation were themselves not
idle in that very department. The subject was introduced to their pulpits,
and their congregations were lectured on it, and from that may be traced
the attempt to defeat Governor Seward.

But we never made this a political question, and the Common Council
have never acted on it " as the representatives of the people," because it
never was applied as a test ; but if the question were put between the Sec-
retary's plan and the Public School Society, the latter would soon break
down any board that would undertake to support them.

We were denied, it is true, by the Common Council ; but we never
looked on them as acting, in that matter, as the representatives of the peo-
ple. We regarded them as independent judges. And, really, there is little
ground for surprise at their decisions in the premises.

Now, I will suppose a case. Let us take that of a bank ; for it is per-
haps as good an illustration as I can furnish at the moment. A citizen has
a controversy with the bank, and that controversy comes to a trial. The
citizen complains that he is injured by the directors of the bank ; he makes
out his case, but, in the end, he finds, contrary to all hia just anticipations
and all his views of justice, that he is defeated, and judgment given against
him. Well, he thinks this very hard. But he happens to learn that the
judge before whom the case was tried, and the jury who rendered the ver-
dict, are all directors of the bank, and his wonder at the result of .the trial
ceases. Do you see the application ? These gentlemen, after having ex-
cluded all religious societies, made the word " religion " a kind of disquali-
fication in a Christian community, in the year 1824; after that, witli the
subtlety which proves that they are wise in their generation, they got an act
passed, .by which the Common Council are made ex-officio members of the
Public School Society, and thus constituted them parties and judges in the
cause.

Let me not be misunderstood. I do not suppose for a moment that any
gentleman of that Common Council would at any time knowingly deviate
from the path of justice and duty on account of his official connection with
that Society ; but, at the same time, I do know that there is a powerful

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 451

influence in association, against which the laws, with great wisdom, have
guarded the judicial bench, when they declare that a judge should be of a
single inind, elevated above all selfish considerations, and whose interests
could never be affected by the result of any official act which he might be
called on to execute, or any sentence which it might be his duty to pro-
nounce. Here, then, were aldermen of different parties elected from time to
time, and so made members part and parcel of this Society ; and I ask,
Would it have been a gracious thing in them, after having been so honored
with a place in it, to become adverse to the interests of that body ? Let us
bear in mind, too, that there is with most people a regard for consequences ;
and no alderman could imagine he would greatly benefit his interests by
opposing a corporation that has acquired nearly the entire control of all
the public money appropriated for the purpose of education in New York,
and having its dependents spread from one end of the city to the other. I
think it would require a strong and elevated mind, an unusual amount of
moral courage, to enable any man so situated to oppose such a corporation.

I do not, then, admit the reasoning of Mr. Ketchum, for I deny his pre-
mises that the Common Council ever were " the representatives of the peo-
ple " on this subject*

I will now commence my review of this speech. I read it carefully from
beginning to end, and I was myself impressed with the idea that it scarcely
required an answer. I was quite convinced of that, so far as the honorable
senators were concerned, because I knew that, to the minds of men accus-
tomed to reasoning, and to detect at a glance where the strength of a posi-
tion rested, that speech must have appeared a thing altogether out of place.
Nevertheless, it was hinted to me that the speech was not intended for sena-
tors alone, and the readiness with which Mr. Ketchum could furnish the
report went considerably to strengthen that opinion. It was said that,
though to me the speech might seem weak, yet to the generality of readers,
particularly those unacquainted with the subject, it might seem very spe-
cious, and produce in their minds the very conclusions opposite to those
which we would wish to see established. On that ground I have taken it
up ; and I must say that, with regard to Mr. Ketchum himself, I have the
kindest possible feeling ; and if, in the course of my remarks, I should hap-
pen to speak in a manner seemingly disrespectful, I beg that it may not be
considered as having been so intended. Of the gentleman himself I cannot
say any thing disrespectful ; of his speech I hope I am permitted to say
whatever the evidence may authorize. I mention his name with perfect free-
dom, because his name is attached to the speech, and because, principally,
he is the official organ of that Society, and what he says is already endorsed
by them.

After his introduction, Mr. Ketchum says :

This, probably, may account very sensibly for the fact that, in the city
of New York, the portion of the school fund allotted to her was to be dis-
tributed by those almoners of her charity whom her representatives thought
proper to designate. Now, I ask, was there any thing inconsistent with
sound principle in this ? Is there any thing in it which violates the princi-

452 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

pie of the largest liberty and the purest democracy, of which we hear some-
thing in this report ?

Stop, Mr. Ketchum ! I tell you that there is not one word in that whole
report against such a state of things as that you represent to the minds of
the senators, by making a wrong application. What is represented as con-
trary to the principle of our Constitution, was the monopoly the exclusive
system that has succeeded to the former ; and Mr. Ketchum is kind enough
to make an anterior reference to the period when all enjoyed the appropria-
tion for the purposes of education. I stop him there, and say that he makes
a wrong application. He ought not to prejudice the minds of senators, or
the community, by pretending that the Secretary's report trenches on the
enjoyment of the largest liberty.

Mr. Ketchum goes on :

In the city of New York, as I shall have occasion to show by and by
and more or less, I suppose, it is so in all the States of Christendom there
are voluntary associations, charitable associations, associations composed of
men, incorporated or otherwise, who are willing to proffer their services to
feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the destitute, and to see to the
application of funds set apart for their relief. Such men are always to be
found in large cities men of fortune, men of leisure, men of benevolence,
who are willing to associate together for benevolent objects, and who are
usually made the almoners of the charity of others.

Now, Mr. Ketchum, in the whole of this, is gliding imperceptibly to the
point he wishes to reach. And what is that point ? It is, to fix on the
minds of the senators that, as religious societies formerly took care of their
poor, and as other associations take care of other objects of benevolence, so
they were to look upon the Public School Society as taking care of educa-
tion. In endeavoring to effect this conclusion, his reasoning glides imper-
ceptibly, as on a colored surface which is black at one extremity and white
at the other, but in which the various shades are so nicely mingled that you
cannot ascertain the point where the change of color begins, so does the
progress of his sophistry elude observation. " Charitable associations ! "
Now, I will examine Mr. Ketchum's philosophy here. I consider that there
is here what may be called a rhetorical picture. He personifies the city of
New York, and calls it " she ; " then he takes her and places her on one
side, and places all the religious societies and benevolent societies, the Pub-
lic School Society amongst the rest ; and, that being done, he says the city
of New York made them her " almoners." But when we take these socie-
ties away, where is " she ? " What becomes of her ? This is what I call a
rhetorical fiction. Mr. Ketchum need not pretend to say that the city of
New York made " almoners." They were self-created. When you take the
religious societies, each having its charity school, and this Society which
we must not call irreligious, although it has always defeated its opponents
by saying that they profess religion these constitute the people of New
York, and they received the money set apart for that specific purpose, and
in their sovereign power and wisdom they applied it as they thought prop-
er. They managed it with perfect harmony, for I never heard of the occur-
rence of a dispute when each section of the community assumed the man-

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 453

agement of their own schools, and it was on account of a charge against one
society of misappropriating the public money that the controversy arose.

Afterward, referring to the Legislature by which that state of things
was changed to the present, he says :

Hence, after many discussions in the Assembly chamber (discussions at
which all the members were invited to attend and almost all of them did
attend, for we had generally a quorum,, although it was before a committee
night after night), the committee of the Assembly at length made a report
favorable to the prayer of the memorial ; but suggesting, in that very report,
whether even so much as was granted in the proposition referred to was not
a violation of sound principle ; whether, in fact, religious societies ought to
participate in the enjoyment of the fund at all, because, by such participa-
tion, the Jew might be made to support the doctrine of the Christian'; and,
vice-versa,, the Christian that of the Jew, the Catholic of the Protestant, the
Protestant of the Catholic, and so on.

What a splendid discovery ! The people hitherto living in perfect har-
mony, all enjoying that appropriation of public money not, perhaps, ex-
pending it in the wisest manner, but, at all events, without disturbance or
dispute. But all at once it is discovered that, because they are religious
societies, it would be a violation of sound principle to allow them the pub-
lic money. And why ? Because, in that case, the money paid by a Protes-
tant might pass to the support of a Catholic school or, if you please, to
the school of a Jew ; and that involved a violation of conscience. I con-
fess, however, I cannot see that, nor do I think any reflecting man can see
it. But what is the fact respecting the turn of the legislation in relation to
the Public School Society, called, at that time, " The Free-School Society" ?
Simply that, because at that Bethel Baptist Church money had been im-
properly appropriated, occasion was taken to punish not the guilty party,
if there was guilt, but those who had memorialized against the abuse of
public money, and to disfranchise every man professing religion, because the
members of one particular Church had abused their trust ! And it is sus-
pected that all this was not done without the secret instrumentality of that
very Free-School Society itself, which then, as at the present day, professed
to have no religion at all. So that, in this very Legislature though I know
that another view of it is perfectly lawful we see that the reasoning ap-
proved by Mr. Ketchum would go to brand a stigma on the sacreduess of
religion ; it would lead to the inference that, because the adherents of one
religious sect have abused their trust in the employment of the public
money, that, therefore, all profession of religion should be an everlasting
disqualification ! But I pronounce such an inference unworthy the citizens
of a land in whose Constitution Christianity is recognized. And I ask,
Where was the usual penetration of Mr. Ketchum when he employed such
reasoning ? By the laws of this State, church property is exempted from
taxation ; and I am surprised that gentlemen of such tender apprehensions
can rest quietly at night, when they reflect that, possibly, Protestant money
is going to make up the deficiency in the revenues of the State caused by
the exemption from taxation granted to Catholic churches ! But I see no
harm at all in the state of things by which money is thus transferred. All

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the churches are represented by all the people, and it matters not an iota if
churches are exempted ; the tax is paid by the members in another form.

So with the public school money. Although, in the manipulation of the
money, it might happen that the identical dollar paid by a Protestant might
pass into the treasury of a Catholic school, the Catholic dollar -would go
back to replace it in the Protestant school ; it would be, in the end, all the
name, for the question is not at all about the identity of the money. If the
taxes could be kept separate, and the money paid by the Protestant go into
tue Protestant box, and the money paid by the Catholic go into the Catho-
lic box, sure enough, they would get their own money; but it would be all
the same if no such care had been taken. Here I would refer to the case of
chaplains in our prisons, &c., not one of whom is a Catholic, but who have
often received the contributions of Catholics ; have they ever complained
that that was a violation of the Constitution ? Certainly not ; and that
practical view of the matter should have taught the gentleman the futility
of his reasoning, that, if the money of one sect went into the hands of an-
other, it was all the same ; it was the money of the people, received from
them in one form and returned to them in another, allowing them, in its
employment, the noble and grand privilege of which, I trust, they will not
allow themselves to be deprived, no matter how they exercise it of obey-
ing the dictates of their own free consciences.

In the course of his speech, the gentleman makes a grand display of all
the sects that were set aside by the Society. Then he asks the Senate,
" Will this honorable body grant to Catholics what was denied to all these ? "
But there is a difference here ; and what is it ? There is not on record an
instance of a complaint on the part of any of these sects that their rights
of conscience were invaded. Episcopalians never made any such complaint,
nor did Presbyterians, nor Methodists, nor did any of the other sects ; but
it happened that they had charity schools attached to their churches, and
they thought, by giving such education as the State required, they were
entitled to their share of the State bounty. But very different was the case
of the Catholics. And now, suppose the circumstances of the case were
reversed, and Catholics had the majority on which the Society depends, and
would employ the power conferred by it in forcing on the whole community
Catholic books and Catholic versions of the Bible, and give the children les-
sons about the burning of Servetus, and the ignorance of a whole nation in
supposing the machine for winnowing corn to be an impious invention, and
denouncing those employing it as guilty of a crime against the God who
supplies the zephyrs and the breeze suppose that case, and that the ag-
grieved minority complained and applied for redress, I trust that on the face
of the earth there would not be found a Common Council of Catholics who
would refuse to listen to so just a prayer.

Mr. Ketchum says farther, when speaking of the action of the Common
Council on this application, that it had been referred to a Law Committee ;
and he quotes the decision of that committee. We, knowing the manner in
which our former applications were disposed of, need not, of course, be sur-
prised at the manner in which this report was expressed. To our last appli-

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 455

cation, made in the spring of 1840 "when I was absent from this country
to the Board of Assistant Aldermen, the usual negative was given ; but then
it is to be observed, that the board was surrounded by the advocates of the
Society, and these things which we have stated, and which they have since
acknowledged, were denied by them ; and on that denial was grounded the
refusal of our application. The advocates of the Society denied that there
were any passages in their books with which we could find fault ; averred
that they contain nothing disrespectful to our religion. But, since then,
they have been obliged to retract that, and to acknowledge repeatedly that,
in making these assertions, they were not sustained by truth ; that there
were passages in those books reflecting upon our faith ; that these passages
had been taught to the children for years, and would have been retained till
this very day, had it not been for our detection and exposure. But it was
not at all surprising that, under the influence of a Society stretching its
gigantic branches over every quarter of the city, and hearing such assertions
from its advocates, the board should deny our claim. But let us glance at
the conclusion which Mr. Ketchum draws from such denial. He says :

I repeat, that I deny the philosophy of this reasoning. I deny that, in
any case, that portion at least of the community that has petitioned for a
reform of this system ever looked to the Common Council as their represen-
tatives on this question. And another argument against Mr. Ketchum's
position is, that this public Council were partisans in the case in which they
were called to deliver judgment. And I think that it would be well for
that Public School Society and the Common Council, if the latter, by their
election to office, are to be engrafted into the former, that the duty of judg-
ing between them and the community were delegated to disinterested par-
ties. Mr. Ketchum goes on to say :

No disrespect was intended them. The Common Council, and every
person engaged in the discussion of the question on behalf of the Common
School Society, took great care to say, " "We do not reject you because you
are Roman Catholics ; and, as evidence of this truth, we give you the fact
that we have rejected similar applications from powerful Protestants ; but
we reject your request because we believe that a sound general principle will
not allow us to grant it."

So there was always a precaution observed. Indeed, I myself remarked
that before the Common Council. They uniformly, with one exception, said
that they did not oppose us because we were Catholics. But Dr. Spring,

456 TUB PUBLIC 6CIIOOL SOCIETY.

with great magnanimity and candor, neglected to take the hint, but de-
clared that he was apprehensive of our faith gaining ground. He would
oppose us, and preserve the Society as it was, even though the rights of the
Catholics should be damaged, and that, for his part, he preferred the
religion of Voltaire to that of Feuelon. The sentiment was indeed a black
one, and it was rendered blacker by the brightness of the candor with
which it was uttered.

Here again Mr. Ketchum states what is incorrect. He says :

We have rejected similar applications from powerful Protestants.

I deny that. I refer him to the records of the Common Council, and I
will venture to affirm that he will not find there one " similar application."
And why ? Simply because there was no ground for any such application.
For, although one denomination of Protestants may differ from another, and
may carry their attachment to their respective dogmas to great length, yet
there is one common ground on which they all, so far as I know, without
exception, meet. What is it ? That the Bible alone, as understood by each
individual, is their rule of faith. They could, therefore, unite on their pub-
lic school question so far as the Bible was concerned. But then they re-
quired that Catholic children, whose creed never admitted that principle,
should be taught that doctrine. They had not the same reason that we had
to go before the Common Council. We felt that we might as well at once
give up to them our children, and allow them to educate them as they
pleased, as to send them to their schools. I deny, then, the statement, that
" similar applications " were made.

Mr. Ketchum proceeds :

And pray, what sort of an institution is the Protestant Orphan Asylum ?
la religion not taught there ? And yet Mr. Ketchum singles out the Catho-
lic Orphan Asylum, and speaks of the favor conferred upon it, in order to

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 457

show the liberality of the Common Council. We are indeed grateful to that
body for having placed ours on the same footing with other institutions of
a kindred character. But the Common Council have granted money to the
Protestant Half-Orphan Asylum, and denied an application of a similar
grant to the Catholics. How can Mr. Ketchum assert that a " privilege "
has been granted to us exclusively ?

In reference to our last application, Mr. Ketchum proceeds :

The subject, I repeat, underwent a very full and free discussion ; and,
after that had terminated, the Board of Aldermen gravely considered and
discussed the subject, and at length, after some delay, came to the conclu-
sion that they would go and visit the schools. Some of the members of the
Board of Public Schools, feeling sensibly alive on the subject, expressed to
me an apprehension that this was a mere evasion, and they feared that the
question had now become mingled with politics. But I said, " Wait, gen-
tlemen ; let them go and see your schools ; it is a natural desire. They
ought to go. It is a great and delicate question, and they ought to be ac-
quainted with it in all its details." They went and visited the public
schools and the Roman Catholic schools, and they incorporated the result of
their deliberations in a report which I have before me, and from which I
shall quote by and by. It is drawn up with great ability, and the decision
was, with but one dissenting voice, that the prayer of the petition should
be rejected ; and it was rejected.

On this I remark, in reference to what I have, I believe, already referred
to, that there has been always a panacea for every evil the appointment of
a committee to visit the schools. Why, this is one of the easiest things in
the world ! A little training, a little arrangement, a judicious wink to the
teachers, will prepare every thing, so that it will be very hard if a pleasiug
exhibition could not be got up in any one of these schools for one hour, on
any day out of the three hundred and sixty-five in the year.

But this has been the invariable remedy no looking at the wounds
which the system was from year to year, and from day to day, inflicting on
less favored portions of the community ; no visit to the back streets and
miserable lanes of this city, in which so large a portion of its future inhab-
itants are grovelling in exposure to vice and degradation. Nothing of that
was thought of. But the schools, enriched and adorned by the expenditure
of more than a million of money, were inspected, and the gratified and
approving visitors returned to the Common Council, to make their report
that it was an excellent system, perfect in its details and admirable in its
workings, and it was only the absurd bigotry and extreme ignorance of the
Catholics that prevented them from reaping its benefits.

Then he compares, with all this, the state of our humble schools. Well,
I will not pretend to say that the Catholic schools were in the best order.'
But here I remark, that, whilst at every stage and step of the progress of
this question I have been obliged to controvert false statements, I can chal-
lenge them to point to a single instance in which they could dispute the
truth of any of our documents. And now I will give a passing notice to
that visit to the Catholic schools. Hear this statement. This committee
say:

We also visited three of the schools established by the petitioners, and

458 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

we found them as represented, lamentably deficient in accommodations, and
supplies of books and teachers ; the rooms were all excessively crowded and
poorly ventilated ; the books much worn, as well as deficient in numbers,
and the teachers not sufficiently numerous ; yet, with all these disadvan-
tages, though not able to compete successfully with the public schools, they
exhibited a progress which was truly creditable ; and with the same means
at their disposal, they would doubtless soon be able, under suitable direc-
tion, greatly to improve their condition.

Such is their testimony.

And now, shall I pass over this opportunity of making a comparison ?
When questioned before the Senate, the Society stated that they could not
get the children to come ; and here are our schools crowded to excess ! I
can show you, in a room not much larger than the square of the distance
between two of the columns supporting the gallery of this building in
which we are now assembled, upward of two hundred children crowded
together. Yet the Public School Society are obliged to pay $1,000 a year
of public money to visitors for the purpose of gathering children to their
schools. For the fact came out, in the course of the investigation, that
they paid that sum yearly to tract distributors for the purpose I have stated ;
whilst we, in our poverty, could not find room or books or teachers for the
multitudes of children that thronged upon us, and whom this exclusive sys-
tem consigns to degradation and ignorance and vice, unless something be
done for them by others.

Such is the testimony of that very committee. And yet the decision to
which they came is quoted by Mr. Ketchum as proof that a " great princi-
ple " of which no definition known is given from the beginning to the end
of his speech prevented them from granting our petition. Well, I have
called your attention already, and would do so again, to a point that shows
as clear as noonday that this denial was not benevolent toward us, nor in
accordance with equal-handed justice. They had opposed us as a sect as
being Catholics. The Secretary of State, however a man whose integrity
of character, legal knowledge, and profound and statesmanlike views have
elevated him to the highest rank in the community placed the question on
entirely different grounds. Mr. Ketchum, in the last sentence of his speech
before the Common Council, declared, that to the Public School Society the
discharge of their duties was rather a burden, which nothing but the ex-
treme benevolence of their nature had prompted them to assume ; and,
unless they were saved from this continued agitation, they would throw it
off. Well, Mr. Spencer excludes all these objectionable features, and places
the question on a broad basis, entirely removed from all sectarianism ; and
then, where are these benevolent gentlemen who are burdened with their
charge these "humble almoners" of the public bounty? At Albany,
ready for a new fight ! Not for their schools, but to oppose the Secretary ;
for Mr. Spencer only wishes to make education like the air we breathe, the
land we live in like other departments of human industry and enterprise
free ! He would not hold the balances so as to afford the least advantage
to any party, but would make all equal, and secure to them the enjoyment
of the rights established by the Constitution of the country. And who

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 450

opposed him? The Public School Society. Their interests were not in-
vaded, but they could not admit the principle that we were to receive edu-
cation consistently with the laws of the State. Why ? You will find that,
in the course of Mr. Ketchum's speech, he says the Public School Society
could not stand one day if education were made free. If the monopoly
which they have wielded for sixteen years should be touched by the little
finger of free trade, they would perish. " They cannot live a day." And,
gentlemen, if they cannot live one day on the principles of justice and free-
dom, then I say that half a day's existence is quite enough for their exclu-
sive system.

We have seen that Mr. Ketchum has introduced the committee to the
schools, and now he comes to the point :

Who, then, complain of the operation of this system ? Our fellow-citi-
zens, the Roman Catholics.

Failing to get, from the hands of a body thus constituted, the redress for
the grievance which they complained of, they come here and now ask it of
you. I say, they come here, because I will presently show you, from their
memorials, that none but they come here.

He has brought it round to that, and he thinks that, if that be estab-
lished, the same prejudices, the same means, that were employed to defeat
us in New York, would be equally efficacious at Albany. He says :

Failing to accomplish their purpose through the Common Council of the
city of New York, they come and ask it here. Failing in their application
to a body of representatives to whom they have applied year after year,
and who represent a population in which is intermingled a greater mass of
Roman Catholic voters than in any other district of the State of New York.

See the advantage that he takes of our known forbearance, and their
activity. Because we, with honorable motives that should have been better
appreciated, abstained from making this question a political one. But they
did make it such a question, and endeavored to deter all public men from
rendering justice to the oppressed Catholics.

Now, I am no politician ; I belong to no party, and I can also, perhaps,
speak with the greater freedom, because we have high-minded friends, and
opponents too, amongst both political parties, and I caa perhaps give a sat-
isfactory answer to Mr. Ketchum's allusion to " voters."

After the election of the Governor, the papers in the views of this Soci-
ety referred to it as a warning ; and not only so, but individuals here wrote
to the Governor in terms of reproach against the Catholics and the Irish, for
not having been more grateful to him. They taunted him with it. And
how is that to be answered ? I should be sorry that ever the Irish should
be ungrateful under any circumstances, or ever forget a friend : and espe-
cially at a time when the high and noble principles of justice and equality
laid down by the fathers of this country seem to be passing rapidly into
oblivion. If a public man stands up for the rights of even the humblest
portion of the community, he is entitled to the gratitude and esteem of
every man who loves his country. Not that the Governor conferred on us
any peculiar favor. I disclaim that ; he never asked any thing for us but
what we conceived our right. But still he was taunted with references to

460 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the ingratitude of the Irish. It was said, " There is what you got by advo-
catinf the cause of the Irish ! " That shows whether we made our question
a political one ; and I am glad, in one sense, that the Irish did not vary,
from the principles in politics to which they had been in the habit of attach-
in" 1 themselves ; because that demonstrates that, whatever may be the opin-
ion of calculating politicians respecting the Irish, that portion of this com-
munity have, perhaps, after all, an integrity of character and purity of prin-
ciple which is not unfrequently found wanting amongst more elevated classes
of both political parties. It was discovered, then, that the Irish would not
abandon their principles from selfish motives. But now let me ask, What
was the case on the other side ? Many of them turned quietly round, aban-
doning all their old political associations and friends, in order to let Gov-
ernor Seward know how much he had dared, when he declared for justice
and equal rights to all.

Such was the case, and our opponents cannot deny it. Mr. Ketchum,
then, is unfortunate in his allusion. He ought not if he had what I shall
not now mention if he had had presence of mind, I will say, he ought not
to have alluded to that matter at all, because it has brought up the proofs
of what was done by his own clients, whilst our vindication is triumphantly
effected.

We have thus been, enabled to refute all the charges urged against us
from the pulpits and religious presses at the disposition of the Society, that
we made a political question of it, and so forth. They did, but we did not.

Gentlemen, I have dwelt longer on some topics than I intended, and
made less progress in my review of this speech than I anticipated. On to-
morrow evening I will proceed with my remarks.

On Friday evening a severe storm prevailed, and the meet-
ing was adjourned to Monday, when Bishop HUGHES proceeded
as follows :

MONDAY EVENING.

BISHOP HUGHES rose, and proceeded as follows :

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN : I have had occasion already to ob-
serve, that the question we are now discussing has passed, or, at least, is
now passing, through the second stage of its progress. In the first stage we
had to apply to the city authorities ; and we were obliged, by the circum-
stances of the case, and for reasons that I have already mentioned, to apply
in a character which we did not desire, but which was forced upon us by
circumstances over which we had no control. The issue of that application
is known. Then we laid our grievances before the Legislature of the State ;
and the Secretary of State, to whom the question had been referred, placed
it upon grounds altogether different from those on which it had hitherto
been considered. Consequently, it was necessary for me, in reviewing Mr.
Ketchum's speech, to consider it under two heads. And hitherto my
remarks on it have applied to the question under the circumstances in

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 461

which it was previous to its reference to the Legislature of the State. We
have now, however, to consider it on the ground on which it has been
placed in the able and eloquent and liberal report of the Hon. Mr. Spencer.
And I cannot avoid observing, in the first place, that, taking into account
the principles of equality and of justice that pervade that document, I did
conceive that the Public School Society could not have found any objections
against it. For you will recollect that Mr. Spencer removes entirely the
objections urged before the Common Council against the recognition of our
claims. These objections were grounded on the principle that no sect or
religious denomination had any thing to do with the money appropriated
for the purpose of education. The Secretary has completely obviated that
objection. He has regarded the petitioners in their civil capacity. He has
exhibited the broad and general grounds on which every public institution
in this country is conducted ; but we find these gentlemen, nevertheless, as
zealous, and their advocates as eloquent, against Mr. Secretary Spencer as
they had been against us. There can be no charge, now, that a recognition
of our claims would favor sectarianism a union of Church and State. All
that has disappeared, and with it, we had hoped, would have disappeared
the opposition to our claims.

I will now follow Mr. Ketchum in his arguments before the Senate.
And, first of all, I would direct your attention to the number of times in
which he repeats that the petitioners are Catholics. He twists and turns
that in a variety of ways, in order to convince the senators that, though we
applied in the character of citizens, that advantage was to be taken away
from us, and we were to be clothed before that honorable body with our
religious character, by the hand of Mr. Ketchum. I should have less confi-
dence in the stability of this Government, less affection for its constituted
authorities, if I thought that such a circumstance could militate against us
in the minds of those gentlemen who have been elected by the suffrages of
the people to the guardianship of equal rights. I conceive, therefore, that
Mr. Ketchum has mistaken the character of that assembly that he has
exerted himself in vain to fix on us the epithet of Roman Catholics, when
we appeared in the character of citizens, and when our right to worship
God according to the dictates of our conscience had been already, d priori,
recognized by the Constitution of the country. And I ask, Is there any
crime in being a Roman Catholic ? Is there any advantage to be gained in
bringing that against us ? Is there any thing in the history of the country
which could justify the hope of prejudicing the minds of senators by such
an allusion ? No. In the days when men stood side by side and shoulder
to shoulder, and blood touched blood in the battle-strife, and with their
brave swords they won the freedom of their country, was it asked, Who is
a Catholic ? or, Who is a Protestant ? Had Mr. Ketchum forgotten the
names and deeds of Kosciusko, of Pulaski, of La Fayette, and the Catholic
soldiers of Catholic France ? Was there any thing said against that religion
by the fathers of our country, when they laid the foundation of the liber-
ties we now enjoy ? Was there any such charge against Charles Carroll,
when he came and signed that glorious Declaration, risking more than all

462 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the other signers together ? No. Nor have we any cause to be ashamed of
our religion, and God forbid \ve ever should ! I throw back, then, that
manoeuvre of Mr. Ketchum, and tell him, This is not the country whose
Constitution makes apparent to the world that, to be a Roman Catholic,
involves a deprivation of the rights and privileges of citizenship.

Last year, a petition was presented to the Senate, signed by Catholics
alone ; this year, the petition had other signatures. True, the petitioners
were generally Catholics, but others signed it too ; and I hope and believe
that they thought they asked but for justice. However, Mr. Ketchum, in
order to accomplish his purpose, takes up the petition presented last year,
and taunts the Secretary, as if he were guilty of artifice in making it appear
that the members of other religious denominations had joined in our peti-
tion. He says :

Probably that circumstance was discovered by the Secretary's sagacity,
between 1840 and 1841.

What does he mean by that allusion, except to remind the Secretary that
it was by prejudicing the public mind by misrepresentations, that certain
partisans succeeded in diminishing the vote for his Excellency the Gov-
ernor ? If Mr. Ketchum does not intend that by this delicate hint, I should
like to know what he does mean. He then affects to take up the objections :

One of their complaints is, that the people are not represented in this
Public School Society ; that here is an agency used for a great public pur-
pose which the people do not directly choose ; and they complain of the
Public School Society being a close corporation.

Certainly, all these are grounds of complaint, and all these are so clearly
set forth in the report of the Secretary, that you have but to read that docu-
ment to see that Mr. Ketchum cannot shake one solitary position of that
honorable gentleman. Is not the Public School Society a close corporation ?
And is not Mr. Secretary Spencer's report calculated to place it on the same
basis on which all our free public institutions are founded ? Is the Secre-
tary not a reformer, then, in reference to that Society ? He does here pre-
cisely what Lord John Russell attempts to do in England, when he endeav-
ors to break down the monopoly of the corn laws, and to make bread cheap ;
Mr. Spencer wishes to break down the monopoly of education, and to make
voting and education the bread of knowledge cheap. That is to say,
that the same people who are supposed to be capable of choosing a sheriff,
or a governor, or a president, without paying for the privilege, should also
have the right of choosing the teachers of their children without paying ten
dollars for it. Mr. Ketchum passes over that very lightly. That is a point
not to be seriously dwelt upon, and he glides into the old charge preferred
before the Common Council, and takes up the old objections, although not
one of them was presented in the petition before the Senate. Keeping
always before the mind of the senators that we are Catholics, he affects to
take up these objections, and says :

Now, I wish to call the attention of the committee to the fact now to be
stated : there is no complaint in these memorials, nor will you hear any from

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 463

any source, that the Public School Society does not furnish, to all the chil-
dren who attend their schools, a good literary education.

Let me caution Mr. Ketchum not to be so fast, and I -will give him my
reasons. From the manner in which the examinations are conducted, it is
the easiest thing in the world to have all ready prepared for the day of visi-
tation. When the examiners present themselves, pet classes are arranged,
and in them pet pupils, who will perform their part admirably well. It is
easy to have all this array, and so it is to be regarded rather as an exhibi-
tion than an examination. But if they desire their examinations to create
universal confidence, let them have them as they are conducted in European
universities, where the pupils stand forward, and any person who chooses
examines them ; when not the choice and prepared pupils are taken, but the
subjects of examination are selected indiscriminately from the classes. Let
such a method be adopted here, and I will venture to say that Mr. Ketchum
will not have any thing to boast of over other schools. I do not, however,
blame the visitors for not finding fault with the external management of
these schools. I think it excellent ; and the best proof of the sincerity of
that opinion was afforded in our willingness to adopt and place the superin-
tendence of our schools in the hands of these very gentlemen.

But Mr. Ketchum goes on :

The Koman Catholics complain, in the first place, that they cannot con-
scientiously send their children to the public schools because we do not give
religious instruction in a definite form and of a decided and definite char-
acter. They complain, in the second place, that the school-books in com-
mon use in the Society contain passages reflecting upon the Roman Catholic
Church. And they complain, in the third place, that we use the Bible with-
out note or comment ; that the school is opened in the morning by calling
the children to order and reading a chapter in the Bible our common ver-
sion. These are the three grounds on which they base their conscientious
scruples.

Now, it is a fact that we do not complain of any one of these things in
our petition to the Senate. One of these complaints was expressed in the
petition to the Common Council, and I have already explained the reasons
of that presentation. But, in the petition to the Senate, we said, in general
terms, that the conscientious scruples of a large portion of our fellow- citi-
zens were violated by the system pursued in these schools. I will, however,
take up these objections in order.

Mr. Ketchum says that we complain, in the first place, that we cannot
send our children to the schools of the -Public School Society "because
religion is not there taught of a decided and definite character." Mr.
Ketchum certainly has not stated the objection correctly, for I defy him to
find such words in our petition. "We complained in general against these
schools, that, by divorcing religion and literature, they endangered the best
interests of children who were to grow up to be men, and who, to be useful
members of the community, should have their minds imbued with correct
principles, and could not be so without being made acquainted with some
religious principles. But we never complained that they did not give " defi-
nite religious instruction." Far from it ; and when Mr. Ketchum asserted

464: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

that we did, I 'am sorry to say that he asserted what he must or might have
known to be untrue. And how do I prove it ? In our propositions to the
committee of the Common Council, when they had gone through with their
ceremony of visiting the schools, and the Society had offered their propo-
sitions, the very last article of our proposal was in these words : " But noth-
ing of their (i. ., Catholic) dogmas, nothing against the creed of any other
religious denomination, shall be introduced." Mr. Ketchum saw that ; and
I ask him, How could he undertake to make an argument by substituting
language entirely different from ours, and presenting it as our objection ?
How could he say that we found fault with the Public School Society for
not teaching religion in a " definite form," when they always disclaimed the
right to teach it at all, and considered it a crime for any denomination to
ask for it ? This is what I call substitution invention a course unworthy
of Mr. Ketchum, of his profession, and of that Society of which he was the
organ.

I am well aware that, to a hasty reader, Mr. Ketchum's speech will
appear very logical indeed. But I have, at the same time, to observe that,
while he reasons logically, by drawing correct inferences from his premises,
he has taken care previously to change the premises, and, instead of taking
our principle as submitted by us, he gradually shifts it ; preserving, how-
ever, enough to deceive a cursory reader, until he substitutes one entirely
different, from which he reasons very logically, of course. Let us suppose
Mr. Ketchum a professor of law in some university for I have no doubt he
could fill such a chair, and adorn it, too, if he would and imagine him
addressing a class of students. He says, " Gentlemen, one of the most im-
portant things in our profession is, to know how to conduct an argument,
which you must always do with logical precision. And, to effect this, you
are to follow this excellent rule : if your facts sustain your conclusions,
well ; if not, you must find other facts that will. The principle of this rule
I call the principle of substitution, and an admirable principle it is ; but
you must be cautious how you use it, especially before a judge and jury.
But if it is before a public, which reads fast for there is a great deal to be
read you will find it work very well. Recollect, then, gentlemen, this
great principle ' substitute ' in your reasoning."

In such a way we might imagine Mr. Ketchum addressing his students.
And you will find that few reason illogically. Even the inmates of the
Lunatic Asylum reason very logically. One of them, perhaps, imagines
himself a clock. He says, " Stand off ! Don't shake me ; I am obliged to
keep time." That is logical reasoning. The only mistake is, that he " sub-
stitutes " a clock for a living creature ; and, reasoning from this substitu-
tion, he draws the conclusion admirably. So it is with Mr. Ketchum.

We did not, I tell Mr. Ketchum, ask the Public School Society to teach
religion in any definite form. We never complained of th^ir not teaching
it. We never did ask such an unreasonable thing from men who made it a
crime for religious societies to have any thing to do with the public money.

He then states another objection : " that the books used in the schools
contain passages reflecting on the Catholic Church." That is true ; and he

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 465

* says, in the third place, that we object that " the Protestant version of the
Bible is used, and that the schools are opened by calling the children to
order and reading a passage from that Bible." Not a word of that in our
petition. That is " substitution " again removing the objections presented
by us, and substituting others which might, as he supposed, lead to the
denial of our claims, on the ground that we object unreasonably.

Mr. Ketchum takes up the objection, and, in order to show how unrea-
sonable that was, he submits the proposition of the Public School Society,
passing altogether over ours, which common justice required should have
been also presented, as it would have discovered on our part a similar dis-
position, and have entirely undeceived the senators as to any alleged claim
to have religion taught in a definite form.

There was no official declaration guarding against the possibility that,
next year, another board might alter all these books to a worse state than
ever ; and, consequently, their offer to expunge their books was altogether
nugatory. Mr. Ketchum says, however :

This portion of the report, as will be seen, has reference to these offensive
passages. Now, every body will say that is a fair offer we will strike them
out. But, gentlemen of the committee, I submit whether here, in this coun-
try, we must not, in matters of conflicting opinions, give and take a little ?

"Well, I do not find the Public School Society, although very good at
taking, at all disposed to give any thing. ^

I have no doubt that I can find something in any public school-book,
of much length, and containing much variety of matter, reflecting upon the
Methodists upon the heated zeal, probably, of John Wesley, and his fol-
lowers ; reflecting upon the Episcopalians, the Baptists, and Presbyterians.
Occasional sentences will find their way into public discourses, which, if
viewed critically, and regarded in a captious spirit, rather reflect upon the
doctrines of all those churches.

In this way he gets over these passages, most insulting to us and our
religion, which I pointed out to these gentlemen, after their having incul-
cated them in the minds of the children for sixteen years past. We have
to add, however, that, in examining these books, we found no passages
reflecting on those denominations.

Now, I will call your attention to Mr. Ketchum's views respecting con-
science and conscientious scruples. We supposed that, when a man could
not do a thing in conscience, the reason was, that he thought, by doing it,
he would offend God. This is what we supposed to be a conscientious diffi-
culty ; and therefore it was that we did not object (as he says, and as I shall
have occasion to treat of presently) to the Protestants reading their version
of the Bible ; because, believing it right, they could use it with a good con-
science. But we Catholics did not approve of that version ; many other
denominations do not approve of it the Baptists and Unitarians, for
instance ; and our objection was, that Mr. Ketchum and the Public School
Society would force on us the reading of that version against which we had
conscientious objections. We believe that, to yield to that, would damage
the faith which we hold to be most pleasing to God. Suppose us to be in
30

466 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

error, if you please, but certainly the Public School Society have no right to
rule that we are. They are not infallible, and, consequently, should recog-
nize our right of conscience, as we recognize theirs.

But Mr. Ketchum has battled bravely against these principles, and,
thinking it would be better for us to agree to offend our God and coincide
with the Public School Society, wishes to beat down these scruples. And
now, would you have his idea of a conscientious scruple ? He institutes a
comparison, in order to show how trifling such things are, and he says :

On the other hand, there are many passages from the speeches of Mr.
Webster which have found their way into school-books ; and a Democrat
may say, " I cannot go Mr. Webster ; my children shall not be taught to
admire him." And thus, if we are captious, we can find conscientious scru-
ples enough.

So that Mr. Webster's writings are placed, as it were, on a parallel with
the Word of God himself; and a difficulty of which he is the subject is
spoken of in the same way as if it. were a difficulty in reference to God.
And what is Mr. Ketchum's conclusion ? That, whilst he would trample on
our conscientious scruples about the deity, he bows with great deference to
the scruple about Mr. Webster, and of this he goes on :

However, if it is bond fide a conscientious scruple, there is the end of it ;
we cannot reason with it. But, in the judgment of the Common Council,
and as I think must be the case in the judgment of every man, the difficulty
is got over by the proposition which has been made.

Well, now, just let him extend a little of that indulgence to us, in the
case in which our account to our Creator and eternal Judge is involved.
But not so. He next says :

The next complaint is, that we do not give religious education enough.

Where did Mr. Ketchum find that ? That is " substitution " again. He
has not found that in any thing from us. He proceeds :

The memorials, all of which are public and the speeches and documents
which have been employed, and which, if necessary, can be furnished to the
committee all go conclusively to demonstrate that, in the judgment of those
who spoke for the Roman Catholic Church, we ought to teach religion in
our public schools ; not generally, not vaguely, not the general truths of
religion, but that specific religious instruction must be given. Now, I
hardly suppose that this deficiency can be made the subject of conscientious
objection.

But that is a false issue. On none of these points has he stated our
objection. We never objected, as far as Catholic children were concerned,
that they did not teach religion. We complained of a system from which
religion was (according to them) excluded by law. But that, on the con-
trary, they did attempt surreptitiously to introduce such teaching, in a form
that we did not recognize. What does he say then ?

The third and last complaint is, that our Catholic brethren cannot con-
sent to have this Bible read in the hearing of their children. Now, on
very one of these points the trustees have been disposed to go as far as

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 407

they possibly could in the way of accommodation ; but they never yet con-
sented to give up the use of the Bible to the extent to which it is used in
the schools. I say, the trustees have never yet consented to this surrender.
But if they can have good authority for doing it, they will do it.

If this Legislature, by its own act, will direct that the Bible shall be ex-
cluded, I will guarantee that it shall be excluded.

Now, perhaps one of the rarest talents of an orator is that which enables
him to accommodate his discourse to the character of the audience whom
he addresses. But, like all rare talents, it should be exercised with discre-
tion. That the learned gentleman possesses it, however, is proved by the
fact that the very declarations made by him before the Senate are contra-
dicted by his statements before the Common Council, and vice-versa. Before
the Common Council, in the presence of a number of the clergy, he elo-
quently denounced the exclusion of the Bible from the schools. If a com-
promise depended on this, he must say, " No compromise ! " Before the
Senate, however, he is all obsequiousness. " Gentlemen, if you give us
authority to exclude the Bible, I guarantee that it shall be so."

I recollect the beautiful period with which the gentleman wound up his
sentiments before the Common Council. I remember him saying that " it
would be hard to part with that translated Bible hard, indeed ; for it had
been the consolation of many in death, the spring of hope in life, and
wherever it had gone, there was liberty and there was freedom ; and where
it had not gone, there was darkness and there was despotism." But I must
apologize for attempting to repeat, as I spoil the poetry of his eloquent lan-
guage. At the time, however, I thought, What a beautiful piece of decla-
mation that would be at a Bible Society meeting ! for on such occasions,
owing to the enthusiasm the sincere enthusiasm of the auditors, and the
oftentimes artificial enthusiasm of the speakers, all history, philosophy, and
common sense occasionally, are rendered quite superfluous. The most beau-
tiful phrases, resting on no basis but fancy, may be strung together, and will
produce the deepest impression. But I doubt much, when we come to
examine the sober reality of the matter, whether the poetical beauties of
Mr. Ketchum's picture will not be seen vanishing into thin air. I doubt
much, indeed, whether the liberty whose origin and progress history has
recorded, will be found to have sprung from " that translated Bible" in any
sense, and especially in the sense of Mr. Ketchum. I, of course, yield to no
man in profound veneration for the Book of God ; but there is a point of
exaggeration which does no credit, but injury, to that Holy Book.

Let us look at these translations of the Bible. The first was Tyndal's,
then Coverdale's, and then the Bishops' Bible ; these remained till the time
of James L ; and during all that time a period of about a century if ever
there was a period of degrading and slavish submission to tyrannical power
in Engand, it was then, beyond all comparison. At the close of this period,
a new translation was made, and dedicated to the king. It was discovered
that the " only rule of faith and practice " during all this time was full of
errors and corruption. Every one knows that James was one of the poorest
of the poor race from whom he was descended. Yet, in their dedication,

468 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the translators appointed to amend the " rule of faith " by a new transla-
tion, call him the " Sun in his strength," and that, from his many and ex-
traordinary graces, he might be called " The Wonder of the World."

Now, during the succeeding sixty or eighty years, what were the doc-
trines of liberty in England ? It was then that the schoolmen of Oxford
and Cambridge taught from that translated Bible the dogma of " non-
resistance to the royal authority ; " that " passive obedience " was the duty
of subjects ; that no crime nor possible tyranny of the prince could author-
ize a subject to rebel. How could Mr. Ketchum forget all that ?

Let us examine the facts of the case, and ascertain how correct Mr.
Ketchum is, when he said that liberty had always followed the progress of
that translated Bible. You will find that, from the period of the Reforma-
tion down to the period of the Revolution, England was sunk to the lowest
degree of slavish submission to tyrannical authority. The spirit of old
English freedom had disappeared at the Reformation ; and it was only at
the Revolution that, like a ship recovering its equilibrium after having long
been capsized by the storm, that the old spirit righted itself again. But do
I speak poetry, like Mr. Ketchum ? Let me appeal to facts.

We find the fundamental principles of liberty as well understood by our
Catholic ancestors, centuries before the Reformation, as they are at the pres-
ent day. They well understood the principles, that all civil authority is
derived from the people, and that those elected to exercise it are responsible
to those from whom they derive their power.

By one of the laws of Edward the Confessor, confirmed by the Con-
queror, the duties of the king are defined ; and it is provided that, unless
he should properly discharge them, he should not be allowed even the name
of king as a title of courtesy, and this on the authority of a pope. The
coronation of Henry I. was based on as regular a contract as ever yet took
place in market-overt. By the coronation oaths of the several monarchs
between him and John, a similar contract was implied. By Magna Charta,
and its articles for keeping the peace between the king and the kingdom,
this implied contract was reduced to writing, and "signed, sealed, and
delivered by the parties thereto." In the reign of Henry III., Bracton, one
of his judges, tells us that, since the king "is God's minister and deputy,
he can do nothing else on earth but that only which he can do of right.
. . . Therefore, while he does justice, he is the deputy of the Eternal
King ; but the minister of the devil, when he turns to injustice. For he is
called king from governing well, and not from reigning ; because he is king
while he reigns well, but a tyrant when he violently oppresses the people
entrusted to him. . . . Let the king, therefore, allow to the law what the
law allows to him. dominion and power ; for he is not a king with whom
his will, and not the law, rules." Dublin Review.

There was the language of a judge in the times before either the Refor-
mation or James' translation of the Bible were dreamed of. I pass to an-
other historical event the crowning of John ; on which occasion Hubert,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, fearing that the monarch^ from supposing .
that his royal blood alone entitled him to receive the kingly office, should
throw the kingdom into confusion, reminded him that no one had such a
right to succeed another in the government unless chosen by the people.

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 469

That no one had a right by any precedent reason to succeed another in
the sovereignty, unless he were unanimously chosen by the entire kingdom,
and preelected according to the eminency of his morals, after the example
of Saul, the first anointed king, whom God had set over His people, though
not a king's son or sprung of a royal race, that thus he who excelled all in
ability, should preside over all with power and authority. But if any of a
deceased king's family excelled the rest of the nation, to his election they
should more readily assent. For these reasons they had chosen Count John,
the brother of their deceased king, on account as well of his merits as of
his royal blood. To this declaration John and the assembly assented.

I wonder whether an archbishop of Canterbury, now, with this trans-
lated Bible in his hands, would dare to utter such language in the presence
of the monarch, when he was about to officiate at a coronation ? Let us
now turn to what occurred after this translation of the Bible. At the exe-
cution of the Earl of Monmouth, there were a number of Protestant divines
who exhorted him to die like a " good Christian ; " and the great point on
which they insisted was, that the subject was bound to obey the prince
with " passive obedience."

But the noble Earl, in whose breast there still burned something of the
principles of the olden times of England, could not agree to that dogma,
and then the divines, under the influence of this translated Bible, refused to
pray for him. Their last words were :

Then, my lord, we can only recommend you to the mercy of God, but we
cannot pray with that cheerfulness and encouragement as we should if you
had made a particular acknowledgment.

The same doctrine was prevalent in the time of Tillotson, and he speaks
of it not only as his own opinion, but as that of those for whom Mr. Ketch-
urn claims the honor of being considered the apostles of English liberty. I
quote from the Dublin Review :

Among those who importuned the unfortunate Lord Russell to make a
similar acknowledgment, was Tillotson, who, by letter, told him that this
doctrine of non-resistance " was the declared doctrine of all Protestant'
Churches, though some particular persons had thought otherwise," and
expressed his concern " that you do not leave the world in a delusion and
false hope to the hinderance of your eternal happiness," by doubting this
saving article of faith. Within the same period, Bishop Sanderson deliv-
ered the doctrine in the following clear and explicit language. He declares
that " to blaspheme the holy name of God, to sacrifice to idols," &c., &c.,
" to take up arms against a lawful sovereign, none of these, and sundry
other things of the like nature, being all of them simple and, de toto genere,
unlawful, may be done on any color or pretence whatsoever, the express
command of God only excepted, as in the case of Abraham sacrificing his
son, not for the avoiding of scandal, not at the instance of any friend, or
command of any power on earth, not for the maintenance of the lives and
liberties of ourselves or others, nor for the defence of religion, nor for the
preservation of the Church and State ; no, nor yet if that could be ima-
gined possible for the salvation of a soul ; no, not for the redemption of
the whole world." This was considered a very orthodox effusion.

An article of faith that you dare not, under any circumstances, resist the
kingly power.

Compare, then, the language of Protestant divines having this translated

470 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Bible before them, with that of Catholic divines at a former period, and see
the ground which Mr. Ketchum has found in England for his poetical asser-
tion. But, perhaps, if \ve turn our attention to the Protestant governments
on the continent of Europe, -we may find his dream realized. Perhaps he
may find it realized in Prussia. In that country there are two principal
communions of Protestants, the Lutheran and the Calvinist. Now, the king
culls his officers together, and tells them to draw up a liturgy decrees that
both will, and shall, and must believe or practice this liturgy. Or he may
go to Norway, or Sweden, or Denmark, and the dark despotism of the
North ; perchance there he may find that liberty of which he speaks pro-
gressing with this translation. What kind of freedom, let me ask Mr.
Ketchum, followed this "translated Bible" to Ireland that everlasting
monument of Catholic fidelity and Protestant shame ?

But to come to this country : perhaps it was in New England, among the
Puritans, that Mr. Ketchum's dream was realized. Ask the Quaker. Per-
haps it was in Virginia. Ask the Presbyterian. Where was it ? Let n\e
tell you. It was in Maryland, among the Catholics. They knew enough of
the rights of conscience to raise the first standard of religious liberty that
ever floated on the breeze in America.

You may be told that Roger Williams, and his associates in Rhode
Island, declared equal rights. Not at all ; he excluded Roman Catholics
from the exercising the elective franchise. But the Catholics did not ex-
clude him. They may refer to Pennsylvania ; the reference is equally unfor-
tunate, for Penn wrote from England, remonstrating with Governor Logan,
I believe, for permitting the scandal of Catholic worship in Philadelphia.
Turn, now, look at the constellation of Catholic republics, before Protestant-
ism was dreamed of as a future contingency. Look at Venice, Genoa, Flor-
ence, and that little republic not larger than a pin's head on the map San
Marino which has preserved its independence for such a long course of
centuries, lest the science of republicanism should be lost to the world.
Look at" Poland, when the Protestants were persecuting one another to the
death in Germany : Poland opened her gates to the refugees, and made them
equal with her own subjects ; and in the Diet of Poland, at which the law
was passed, there were eight Catholic bishops, and they must have sanc-
tioned the law, for the liberisin veto gave each the power to prevent it. I
challenge Mr. Ketchum to point, in the whole history of the globe, to one
instance of similar liberality on the part of Protestants toward Catholics.

Now, what becomes of that beautiful declaration of Mr. Ketchum, that,
wherever that translation had gone, liberty had followed ? I know, indeed,
that in this country we all enjoy equal, civil rights ; but I know also that it
was not Protestant liberality that secured them. They grew out of neces-
sity ; and in the declaration of them there is no difference made between
one religion and another. Catholics contended as valiantly as any other in
the first ranks of the contest for liberty. And I fervently hope that it is too
late in the day for any one to pretend that Catholics have been so blinded
by their religion as to be unable to know what is liberty and what is not.

Be it understood, then, that not one of the objections which Mr. Ketch-

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 471

um lias put into our mouths respecting the Bible was presented to the Sen-
ate by us.

Mr. Ketchum, after having thus disposed of our pretended objections,
goes on to speak of the Secretary's report :

They will be satisfied with it; it will 'give them what they ask. Now,
let us see how. There is no proposition contained in this report that reli-
gious societies, as such, shall participate in this fund none.

Then, sir, I ask, What is your objection ? In New York, before the
Common Council, all your opposition was directed against " religious socie-
ties." Mr. Spencer has removed every ground for that, and I therefore ask,
What is your objection? Your object is, to preserve the Public School
Society in the possession of the monopoly, not only of the funds contributed
by the citizens for the support of education, but also of the children. He
says :

The trustees of districts shall indicate what religion shall be taught in
those schools. That is to say, that you shall have small masses ; that these
small masses shall elect their trustees ; and as the majority of the people in
those small masses may direct, so shall be the character of the religious
instruction imparted.

Mr. Spencer wishes to take from the Society that very feature which is
objected to ; that is to say, he wishes that religion shall neither be excluded
nor enforced by law. And yet Mr. Ketchum, by his old principle of substi-
tution, makes out quite a different proposition from the report, and infers
that the trustees shall have the power to prescribe what religion shall be
taught. I do not see that in the report at all. On the contrary, the Secre-
tary leaves parents at liberty to act on that subject as they see proper. Mr.
Ketchum supposes a case to illustrate his view of the matter, which, I must
say, does not do him much credit. He says :

But when a school is formed in the Sixth Ward of the city of New
York, in which ward (for the sake of the argument we will assume) the
Roman Catholics have a majority in the district, they choose their trustees,
and these trustees indicate that a specific form of religion to wit, the Ro-
man Catholic religion shall be taught in that school ; that mass shall be
said there, and that the children shall cross themselves with holy water in
the school, having the right to do so according to this report, the Catholics
being in a majority there. Then, and not till then, can these Roman Cath-
olics conscientiously send their children to school. That is to say, their
objections to this system are to be overcome by having a school to which
they can conscientiously send their children ; and that school must be one
in which religion is to be taught according to their particular views.

That is drawing an inference without the facts, for we never said so
never even furnished him with authority to say so; and although Mr.
Ketchum has the authority of the Public School Society to speak, yet that
does not enable him, when he states what is not the fact, to make it true.
But I wish to know why he brought up that picture at all ; why the Sixth
Ward should have peculiar charms in his imagination ; or why he should
have introduced all that about the children crossing themselves with holy
water. And pray, is it for Mr. Ketchum to find fault with what he supposes

472 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

to be a religious error, and for \vhich he is not at all accountable ? He has
not shown, nor has any man shown, that any such consequences would fol-
low. It is impossible that the trustees could act so ridiculously us to per-
mit such a thing ; it was incredible that they, being responsible to the
officers appointed by the State, and under the eye of such vigilant gentle-
men as Mr. Ketchum and the Public School Society, could permit Mass to
be celebrated in the school. Yet such is the picture presented by Mr.
Ketchnm quite in accordance with his old course, and in order to excite
popular prejudices, for which purpose this speech seems to have been so stu-
diously prepared. For he well knew that, amongst a large portion of the
Protestants, there is a vast amount of traditional prejudice against Catho-
lics, which has, from being repeated incessantly and seldom contradicted,
become fixed, occupying the place of truth and knowledge. Their case
reminds me of what is related of Baron Munchausen. It is said that, when
this celebrated- traveller was old, he had a kind of consciousness that there
was some former period of his life when he knew that all his stories were
untrue ; but he had repeated them so often, that now he actually believed
them to be true.

It is to such persons as are under the influence of these prejudices and
bigotries that Mr. Ketchum addresses his speech ; and, if he utter the senti-
ments of the Public School Society, how, I ask, can we confide to their
hands the training of the tender minds of our children ?

But one of the most remarkable things in this speech is, that, after hav-
ing beaten off in succession the different religious denominations, because,
as he said, they would teach religion, having, in fact, played the one sect
against the other, Mr. Ketchum turns round and affirms that the Society
itself does teach religion. He says :

No, sir. I affirm that the religion taught in the public schools is pre-
cisely that quantity of religion which we have a right to teach. It would
be inconsistent with public sentiment to teach less ; it would be illegal to
teach more.

The " exact quantity ! " Apothecary's weight ! Nothing about the
quality, except that Mr. Ketchum, having made it an objection that we
wished religion in a definite form, he will give it in an indefinite form a
fine religion ; but, at all events, there is to he the " legal quantity." Well,
now let us see something about the quality of this religion ; and I wish to
consider the subject seriously. And here let me refer to a beautiful senti-
ment expressed by the Secretary in his report. He says that religion and
literature have become so blended, that the separation of the one from the
other is impossible. A more true or appropriate declaration could not pro-
ceed from the lips of any man wishing the welfare of his country and his
kind.

Now, whenever we made objections to that Society for pretending that
religious subjects were excluded by law, it was on these grounds. We said,
We refer you to the experience of public men to that of the most cele-
brated statesmen in Europe, even the infidels of France, who have uniformly
declared that society cannot exist except on the basis of religion. All of

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 473

them, whether believing in religion or not, have admitted the necessity of
having some kind of religion as a basis of the social edifice. But these gen-
tlemen, in all their debates, have contended that the education to he given
should be " purely civil and secular." That is their official language. And
now, for the first time, Mr. Ketchum, before the Senate, declares that the
Society does teach religion, and exactly the proper quantity.

Let me now call your attention to a passage in one of their reading-
books, in order that we may see a specimen of this religion. I will now
make a few comments on the passage, but I do conceive that there are per-
sons of all those denominations who recognize the doctrine of the Divinity,
who could not be induced to have the minds of their children inoculated
with such sentiments as it contains. Referring to our blessed Redeemer, one
of their school-books says :

His answers to the many insidious questions that were put to Him
showed uncommon quickness of conception, soundness of judgment, and
presence of mind, completely baffled all the artifices and malice of His ene-
mies, and enabled Him to elude all the snares that were laid for Him.

Are these the ideas of the divine attributes of the Redeemer which the
Christian portion of the community wish impressed on the minds of their
children ? That such have been the sentiments taught by the Society for
the last sixteen years, they cannot deny. And they may account for it as
they please, but it has attracted the attention of many, that, for the last six-
teen years, the progress of that young and daring blasphemy that trifles
with all that is sacred has increased tenfold iu this city. How do I account
for it ? In two ways : first, because a large portion of the young are de-
barred from the benefits of education ; and, on the other hand, there is the
attempt which has been made to divorce religion from literature. When
such causes exist, you need not be surprised to find that infidelity thickens
its ranks and raises on every side its bold and impious front.

I have presented you with a specimen of the quality of that religion
which Mr. Ketchum says is dealt out with exact and legal measure.

Mr. Ketchum contends that it is religion of a decided character that we
want. And pray, what are we to understand by a religion that is not
decided ? A religion which is vague a general religion ? What is the
meaning of these terms ? I desire to have a definition of them.

If there is to be established by law a Public-School-Society-religion, I
should like to have its confession of faith, and be informed of the number
of its articles, and the nature of the doctrines contained in them. But it
seems to me that Mr. Ketchum and this Public School Society resemble a
body of men who are opposed to all physicians because they understand
medicine ; and who, although themselves opposed to all practice of medi-
cine, are yet disposed to administer to the patients of the regular practition-
ers. And the comparison holds good ; for, after all, children are born with
a natural moral disease want of knowledge and evil propensities, and edu-
cation and religion are the remedial agents to counteract these evil tenden-
cies and remove the natural infirmity. Then, we have the practitioners, as
they may be termed, coming to see the patient, the whole community sup-

4:74r THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

plying the medicine-chest ; and we have these men surrounding this chest,
and exclaiming to the physicians, "Clear off! You are a Thomsonian,
and you are a Broussaist, and you are a Homoeopathic, and you are a regu-
lar practitioner, and you -wish to prescribe remedies of a decided and defi-
nite character, which is contrary to ' a great principle ; ' " and, having thus
banished all the physicians, they turn doctors themselves, and mix up their
drugs into what they call a " general medicine," of which they administer
what they call the legal quantity. But the gentlemen forget that neither
the patient nor the medicine are theirs. Those who furnish the patient and
supply the medicine-chest should have a voice in the selection of the doc-
tors.

What do the gentlemen really intend ? They object to religious socie-
ties, but, after they have got them pushed out of the house, they begin to
teach religion themselves. Mr. Ketchum acknowledges that. He and Mr.
Sedgwick, his associate, however, do not appear to have studied theology in
the same school. One says that religion is the basis of all morality ; the
other, that morality is the basis of religion. And, after all, do men agree
any more in their views of morality than religion ? Certainly not. And
yet you must give to the children, especially those of that class attending
these schools for it should be borne in mind that they, for the most part,
do not enjoy the opportunity of parental or pastoral instruction some sup-
ply of religious education. They are the offspring of parents who, unfortu-
nately, cannot supply that deficiency ; and if they are brought up in this
way, with a kind of contempt for religion, or with the most vague idea of
it, the most lamentable results must necessarily follow.

I now come to another point : the non-attendance of the children in the
schools. Whilst our humble school-rooms are crowded to excess, the Soci-
ety has been obliged to give $1,000 a year to persons for recruiting for chil-
dren. In Grand street they have erected a splendid building, almost suffi-
cient to accommodate the Senate of the State ; and besides all that, we find
that they are able to lavish public money in payment to agents to collect
children. Mr. Seton, who has been a faithful agent of the Society, made
that fact known, and stated that, by this means, eight hundred children
were collected. And to whom was this money given ? To tract distribu-
tors. A very good occupation, theirs, I have no doubt, but, at the same
time, that was rather a singular appropriation by men so extremely scrupu-
lous lest any portion of the public money should go to the support of any
sect. But I suppose that was on the principle of what Mr. Ketchum calls
" giving and taking ; " that is, you give a tract and take a child.

Then, we have quite an effort, on the part of Mr. Ketchum, to prove that
the trustees discharge their onerous duties much better than officers elected
by the people. I will quote his remarks on that point :

This Public School Society receives its daily sustenance from the repre-
sentatives of the people ; and the moment that sustenance is withdrawn, it
dies it cannot carry on its operations for a day.

A most beautiful subversion of the actual order ! For, so far from the
Common Council patronizing the Society, it is the Society that patronizes

SPEECH OF BISHOP HUGHES. 475

the Common Council, taking them into partnership the moment they are
elected ; and, so far from being dependent on the Council, as was well re-
marked by a greater authority than I am on this subject, the Council are
dependent on the Society. The schools belong to the Society, just as much
as the Harlem Bridge does to the company who built it. What remedy is
there, then ? The Society, self-constituted, a close corporation, takes into
partnership the Common Council, which then becomes part and parcel
bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the Society ; and if any differ-
ence arises between the citizens and the Society, a committee of that very
Society adjudicates in the Cause. Thus we have found that the Common
Council, after having denied our claim, and even when about to retire and
give place to their successors, followed us to Albany ; and their last act, like
that of the retreating Parthian who flung his dart behind him, was, to lay
their remonstrance on the table of the tribunal to which we had appealed.
Mr. Ketchum says :

Here are agents of the people men who, having a desire to serve man-
kind, associate together ; they offer to take the superintendence of particu-
lar works ; they offer themselves to the public as agents to carry out certain
benevolent purposes ; and, instead of paying men for the labor, they volun-
teer to do it for you, " without money and without price," under your direc-
tions to do it as your servants, and to give an account to you and an
account to the Legislature. Voluntary public service is always more effi-
cient than labor done by servants chosen in any other way.

So that, because they serve gratuitously, they discharge their duties
much better than if elected by the people ! Well, let us improve upon the
hint. Perhaps some of them may be kind enough to discharge the more
important functions of the Government for nothing. But if volunteers be
more efficient than officers chosen by the votes of the people, let us abolish
the farce of elections altogether. Not satisfied with this, Mr. Ketchum also
would seem to contend, that the volunteers ought not to be held respon-
sible.

To establish his views on this point, Mr. Ketchum refers to charitable
and benevolent institutions. But where is the justice of the comparison ?
The sick are incompetent to secure their own protection and recovery. The
inmates of the House of Refuge, on which Mr. Ketchum has a beautiful
apostrophe, referring to his own share in the erection of that one established
in this city, are likewise unable to take care of themselves. And here let
me say, in all sincerity, to Mr. Ketchum, that if he and the Public School
Society determine to perpetuate their system if they continue to exclude
religion from education, and at the same time deprive four fifths of the chil-
dren, as now, of any education at all. then he had better stretch his lines
and lay the foundations of houses of refuge, as the appropriate supplement
to the system. Neither does the comparison hold, as I have before shown,
in reference to lunatic asylums, &c.

Then Mr. Ketchum goes on to illustrate farther, and says :

But it is said and said, too, in this report of the Secretary that he
proposes to retain these public schools. How retain them ? One of the

476 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

features of the proposed new law is, that all school moneys shall be paid to
the teachers. Under such a law we cannot live a day not a day.

What an acknowledgment is that ! thut a law, which would make edu-
cation free, giving equal rights to all, would be the death-warrant of the
Public School Society 1

There is another point on which Mr. Ketchuui does not now dwell so
emphatically. He says that there were a large number of taxpayers who
wonderful to relate ! asked for the privilege of being taxed asked for that
privilege for the purpose of supplying the Public School Society with
money to carry out their benevolent purposes. Mr. Ketchum seems to con-
sider that, at that time, there was a kind of covenant made between these
petitioners to be taxed and the State authorities ; that, when they petitioned
and were taxed, the authorities of the State bound themselves to keep up
this system in perpetuum. But did these persons ask to be taxed exclusively
out of their own pockets ? or did they ask for a system of taxation which
should reach all the tax-paying citizens of New York ? There is a fallacy
in Mr. Ketchum's argument here. He supposes that, because these persons
are large property-holders, that they are, therefore, par eaxellence, the payers
of taxes. He forgets that it is a fact well understood in the science of
political economy, that the consumer is, after all, the taxpayer ; that it is
the tenants occupying the property of those rich men, and returning them
their large rents, who are actually the taxpayers. And what peculiar merit,
then, can Mr. Ketchum claim for these owners of property, and petitioners,
to have all the rest of the citizens taxed as well as themselves ? But he
insists there was an agreement a covenant entered into between them and
the State authorities ; and if you interfere with its provisions, you must
release these taxpayers from their obligations as such. With all my heart, I
have no objection. All we want is, that there should be no unjust interfer-
ence, no exclusive system, no extraneous authority interposed between the
taxpayer and the purpose for which the tax is collected. But the fact that
others, besides these petitioners, are equally involved in the burden, demol-
ishes this argument of Mr. Ketchum.

In his conclusion, the learned gentleman insists that, unless the Society
remain as it is, it cannot exist; and then goes on further for- it would be
impossible for hyn to close his speech without again reminding the Senate
that we are Roman Catholics. He says :

The people in New York understand the subject, and the Roman Catho-
lics cannot say that they will not be heard as well there as here. Why not
leave the matter to us, the people of the city of New York ?

Thus Mr. Ketchum, after having first endeavored to impress the minds
of the Senate that we had had all imaginable fair play that other denomi-
nations had made applications similar to ours, which is not the fact that
our petition had uniformly been denied in the several boards representing
the people of New York, whereas he knew that, in this question, the people
of New York was never even represented by the Common Council he goes
on to say, at last : " Why not leave the matter to us, the people of the city

SPEECH OF BI8IIOP HUGHES. 477

of New-York ? " I trust not, if a committee of the Public School Society,
called the Common Council, are to be at once parties and judges. I hope
that the question will not be referred back, although, for Mr. Ketchum's
satisfaction, I may state that, if it were so referred, the Common Council
would not, I will venture to say, now decide upon it by such a vote as they
did" before, when one man alone had the courage whether he was right or
wrong to say " nay," when all said " yes." . In consequence of that vote
as they have since taken care to tell us this gentleman lost his election ;
but, what was of infinitely greater importance, he preserved his honor.
Were the matter now before the Common Council, they would see a thou*
sand and one reasons for hesitation before deciding as before. For when
public men see that any measure is likely to be popular, they can find abun-
dant reasons for taking a favorable view of the question. I will refer Mr.
Ketchum to a sign from which he may learn what he pleases. Since the
Common Council that denied our claims went out of office, their successors
have had the matter before them ; and when, in the Board of Assistants, it
was proposed to pass a resolution requesting the Legislature to defer the
consideration of the question, the motion was negatived by a tie vote.

Still, Mr. Ketchum will have the end of this speech something like the
end of the last. Then he said that this was a most distressing topic to the
gentlemen of the Public School Society that they were men of peace.
That I do not controvert ; but certainly I must say that, in the course of
this contest, they appear to have exhibited a spirit contrary to their natures.
But so peaceful were they, Mr. Ketchum said, that, if any longer annoyed,
they would throw up their office and retire. But, after all, they could send
their agents to Albany to oppose us there : the one Dr. Rockwell to dis-
seminate a burlesque on our faith, from " Tristram Shandy ; " the other
Mr. Ketchum to plead as zealously, but I think not as successfully, against
the recognition of our claims. Mr. Ketchum says :

Now, the contest is renewed, and the trustees engage in it with' extreme
reluctance ; they have no personal interests to advance, and they are very
unwilling to be put in hostile array against any of their fellow-citizens.

Mr. Chairman, the lateness of the hour admonishes me that I have tres-
passed too much upon your patience. I have but one observation to make
in conclusion.

These gentlemen have spoken much and laid great emphasis on the im-
portance of morality; but, as I have already remarked, morality is not
always judged of by the same criterion. Let me illustrate this. According
to the morality which my religion teaches, if I rob a man, or injure him in
his property, and desire to be reconciled to God, I must, first of all, if it be
in my power, make reparation to the man whom I have injured. Again, if
I should unfortunately rob my neighbor of his good name, of his reputa-
tion, either by accident or through malice, before I can hope for reconcilia-
tion with an offended God, I must repair the injury and restore my neigh-
bor's good name. If I belied him, I must acknowledge the lie as publicly
as it was uttered. That is Catholic morality. Well, now, these gentlemen
have belied us ; they have put forward and circulated a document which

478 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

existed only in the imagination of Sterne a foul document and represent-
ed it as a part of our creed. I do not say that they directly required this to
be done ; but their agent did it, and he cannot deny it. I wonder now,
then, if they will have such a sense of morality as will impel them to en-
deavor to repair the injury thus done to our reputation, by any official dec-
laration that that is a spurious document ? I wonder if the conscientious
morality that presides over the Journal of Commerce will prompt its editors
to such a course ? If it do not, then it is a morality different from ours.

I apprehend that no such reparation will be offered for the injury we
have sustained by the everlasting harangue of abuse and vituperation that
has been poured out against us for these few years past. Have we not been
assailed with a foul and infamous fiction, in the pages of a work called
" Maria Monk " ? And have its reverend authors ever stood forward to do
us justice, and acknowledge the untruth which, knowing it to be so, they
published ? Have they ever attempted to counteract that obscene poison
which they disseminated, corrupting the morals of youth throughout every
hamlet in the land ? Whilst denouncing, in their ecclesiastical assemblies,
the works of Byron and Bulwer, did they include in their denunciations the
filthy and enormous lie published under their auspices, the writings of
"Maria Monk"?

What idea, then, must we form of their morality and religion ? And
here it would be unjust to omit mentioning that many Protestants, not
under the influence of blinded bigotry, have done us justice on this point.
In particular I refer to the conduct of one distinguished Protestant writer
who cannot be accused of great partiality for us, but who exposed and re-
futed the authors and abettors of this filthy libel to which I have referred.
I know that it would be incorrect and unjust to say that thousands of oth-
ers, sincere Protestants, but high-minded, honorable men, have not taken
the same view of the subject. But I speak particularly of the morality of
the authors and publishers of these abominable slanders ; and I regret that
the Public School Society, by their recent proceedings, should have allowed
themselves to sink to a kindred degradation.

Mr. Ketclmm replied to tlie speech of Bishop Hughes briefly,
through the press, and several rejoinders followed from the pens
of the distinguished advocates of the opposing interests. The
question was constantly agitated, and became a very exciting
element in the election for members of the city delegation to the
Senate and House of Assembly, in the month of November.
An independent organization, and the nomination of a school
ticket, was determined upon by the Catholics, and measures
were adopted accordingly. Inquiry having been made among
the candidates of the " Democratic " and " Whig " parties, a
selection was made, and three new names were placed on the
school ticket, in default of gentlemen who did not respond satis-
factorily to the wishes of the committee.

ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL TICKETS. 4:79

The Freeman's Journal of October 23 published a call for a
meeting of " the friends of civil and religious freedom, in. favor
of extending the benefits of a common school education to the
neglected and indigent children of this city," to be held on the
following Tuesday, the 26th of the same month. The " Church
Debt Association " held a meeting on Monday evening, at which
Bishop Hughes was present, and made an address. He spoke at
some length on the school question, and, in an earnest appeal to
the audience, urged a full attendance the following evening.

On Tuesday evening, Carroll Hall, the place of meeting, was
crowded at an early hour with an assemblage attracted by the
promise of a speech from the bishop, as well as by the object of
the meeting, which was to decide on a list of candidates to be
voted for at the election then approaching. Bishop Hughes rose,
and delivered a lengthy address, during which he presented a
ticket for the support of the Catholics. A few passages will
serve to show the spirit and enthusiasm which characterized the
meeting. Said the reverend gentleman :

With political controversies and party questions I have nothing what-
ever to do. . . . It is impossible for me to say any thing personally of
those whose names have been recommended to be placed on the list of can-
didates, and I would not for one moment urge that they should be placed
there, had I not been assured, on the most positive evidence, and which I
could not doubt, that they are friendly to an alteration in the present sys-
tem of public education. ... I will now request the Secretary to read the
names placed on the ticket. Of that ticket I have approved. It presents
the names of the only friends we could find already before the public, and
those whom, not being so prominently before the public, we have found for
ourselves.

The Secretary then read the following list :

SENATOKS.

Thomas O'Connor, J. G. Gottsberger.

ASSEMBLY.

Tighe Davey, David B. Floyd Jones,

Daniel C. Pentz, Solomon Townsend,

George Weir, John L. O' Sullivan,

Paul Grout, Ajiguste Davezac,

Conrad Swackhamer, William McMurray,

William B. Maclay, Michael Walsh,
Timothy Daly.

" Each name," says the report of the Freeman's Journal,

480 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

" was received with the most deafening and uproarious applause,
and three terrific cheers were given at the close," on the subsi-
dence of which the Bishop proceeded :

You have now, gentlemen, heard the names of men who are willing to
risk themselves in support of your cause. Put these names out of view, and
you cannot, in the lists of our political candidates, find that of one solitary
public man who is not understood to be pledged against us. What, then, is
your course ? You now, for the first time, find yourselves in the position to
vote at least for yourselves. You have often voted for others, and they did
not vote for you ; but now you are determined to uphold, with your own votes,
your own rights. (Thunders of applause, which lasted several minutes.)
Will you, then, stand by the rights of your offspring, who have for so long
a period, and from generation to generation, suffered under the operation of
this injurious system ? (Renewed cheering.) Will you adhere to the nomi-
nation made ? (Loud cries of " We will ! we will ! " and vociferous ap-
plause.) Will you be united ? (Tremendous cheering the whole immense
assembly rising en masse, waving of hats, handkerchiefs, and every possible
demonstration of applause.) Will you let all men see that you are worthy
sons of that nation to which you belong ? (Cries of " Never fear we
will ! " " We will, till death ! " and terrific cheering.) Will you prove
yourselves worthy of friends ? (Tremendous cheering.) Will none of you
flinch ? (The scene that followed this emphatic query is indescribable, and
exceeded all the enthusiastic and almost frenzied displays of passionate feel-
ing we have sometimes witnessed at Irish meetings. The cheering, the
shouting, the stamping of feet, waving of hats and handkerchiefs, beggared
all powers of description.) Very well, then ; the tickets will be prepared
and distributed amongst you, and, on the day of election, go, like freemen,
with dignity and calmness, entertaining due respect for your fellow-citizens
and their opinions, and deposit your votes. I ask, then, once for all, and
with the answer let the meeting close, Will this meeting pledge its honor,
as the representative of that oppressed portion of the community for whom
I have so often pleaded, here as well as elsewhere will it pledge its honor
that it will stand by these candidates, whose names have been read, and
that no man composing this vast audience will ever vote for any one pledged
to oppose our just claims and incontrovertible rights ? (Terrific cheering
and thunders of applause, which continued for several minutes, amid which
Bishop Hughes resumed his seat.)

The ticket was adopted by acclamation, and the meeting
adjourned.

A letter of inquiry was addressed to the candidates before
the public, by a committee selected for the purpose, in which
they were requested to state their views on the school question,
and whether they were favorable to the Public School Society,

GEORGE T. TRI MBLE

ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL TICKET. 481

or to a change .of system. Those of the candidates then in the
city replied to the inquiry, and a card also appeared, signed by
Messrs. Solomon Townsend, D. K. Floyd Jones, George Weir,
Paul Grout, Conrad Swackhamer, Auguste Davezac, William
McMurray, George G. Glazier, David Dudley Field, and Ed-
ward Sandford, in which they declared that they " discounte-
nance altogether the schemes and the objects of the present Gov-
ernor of the State," who, as they charged, had originated all the
difficulties of the school question.

The election for members of Assembly resulted as follows :

Solomon Townsend, ..... 18,374

D. R. Floyd Jones, ..... 18,349

William B. Maclay, ..... 18,268

George Weir, ..... 18,231

Paul Grout, ...... 18,195

C. Swackhamer, ..... 18,092

A. Davezac, ...... 18,060

William McMurray, ..... 17,970

John L. O'Sullivan, 17,644

Daniel C. Pentz, ..... 16,889

Joseph Tucker, ...... 16,336-

William Jones, ..... 16,312

Nathaniel G. Bradford, ...... 16,308

The last three names in the above list are those of candidates
not on " the regular ticket " of the party supposed to be most
favorable to the objects of the Carroll Hall party. The three
names voted for by the Catholics, as recommended by Bishop
Hughes, with the number of votes they received, are the follow-
ing: Michael Walsh, 2,330; Tighe Davey, 2,172; Timothy
Daly, 2,163.

The vote for Senators resulted as follows : Thomas O'Connor,
2,202 ; J. G. Gottsberger, 2,175.

This demonstration at the ballot-box of a religious body,
under the leadership of its most popular and prominent digni-
tary, occupying the chair of bishop of the diocese, was univer-
sally regarded by the people at large, and especially by the
members of other communions, as highly offensive and danger-
ous as a precedent, and antagonistic to the spirit of our republi-
can institutions. It created a profound impression, which, how-
ever, was sensibly relieved when the canvas had been completed,
31

482 THE TDBLIO SCHOOL SOCIETY.

and the strength of the Carroll Hall party was ascertained by
the test vote on the last three candidates. The comparatively
small number of votes of all parties who were willing to make
the sectarianism of our schools a special issue, dissipated the
apprehensions of many who feared that a powerful organization
would be created for further movements. It was the last effort
made, as the occasion for a distinct issue was removed by the
action of the Legislature in 1842. The proceedings during that
session, and the change introduced, are made the subject of the
next chapter.

The reader of the speech of Bishop Hughes will have noticed
several allusions to "TRISTKAM SHANDY," LAURENCE STERNE,
and the Journal of Commerce. The record will not be intelli-
gible without an explanation of the facts.

After Mr. Spencer's report appeared, the session of the Legis-
lature being far advanced, the indications of success on the part
of the Catholics threatened the friends of the Society with the
decay of their system. One of them wrote a reply to the report
of the Secretary, which was published in the columns of the
Journal of Commerce at the last moment. The bill had been
made the special order for Friday, May 21st. On Thursday, the
20th, the artrcle appeared, and a number of copies were sent by
a gentleman in New York to a friend in Albany, by whom they
were marked, and placed on the tables of the senators, so that
they would attract immediate attention. It was as follows :

From the Journal of Commerce of May 20, 1841.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE BRIEFLY EXAMINED.

MR. EDITOR : The report of the Secretary of State on the subject of
school education in the city of New York, having been before the public
for several days, and feeling, as I do, a deep interest in the cause, I am con-
strained to make a few suggestions in reply to it, in the hope that I may
.contribute a little to a full understanding of this interesting question.

The importance of universality in the systems of education adopted by
the people has not been overdrawn, and cannot be too much appreciated.
No one should be left without the opportunity of making some progress in
those studies, the acquisition of which will qualify him for a high and hon-
orable and useful station in society at least, to prepare him to exercise the
responsible privilege of deciding, by the right of suffrage, the course of
legislation under which he would prefer to live. This is the principal fea-
.ture of the report ; this is its professed object. Regarding it as an essential

JOUBNAI. OF COMMERCE. 483

principle, that, as all have civil equality, they should also enjoy an equality
in the means of education, the Secretary has proposed the destruction of one
system and the substitution of another. If the figures he presents were con-
sistent with facts, and the new system were not open to powerful objections,
his report would meet with even more general approbation than it receives
at present.

The statistics which he furnishes respecting the number of children in
and out of school, show that 32,194 did not attend any school, while less
than that number, or 30,758, were registered on the books of schools, of
whom 22,955 were embraced in the public schools the average attendance
being 13,189.

The disparity between the attendants upon the means of instruction, and
those children not attending, is far less than, by this statement, would
appear to be the case.

1. The public schools in this city are open to the reception of children
and youth between four and sixteen years of age, but the proportion of
those over twelve or thirteen is but as one to twenty-five or thirty. Hence, a
very large reduction in the number of non-attendants must be made. I
have no data by which I can give the number of children between twelve
and sixteen, but there is doubtless at least one third of the whole number,
making a consequent reduction of 15,000 or 20,000 ; leaving the number of
non-attendants at 15,000 to 17,000, instead of 32,194.

2. A large number of children are foreigners, who do not speak our lan-
guage, who are unacquainted with the schools, do not feel their importance
or understand the system, and who will not be enticed into school. For
these, another proportion must be deducted.

3. Many of the poorer class of the population find it necessary to avail
themselves of the services of their children for their own support, and they
are consequently put out to work, in factories and other places, at an early
age. Many occupations are performed principally by children eight and ten
years of age, and no doubt several thousands are thus engaged. For these,
another reduction must be made.

In this manner, by an appeal to facts which may be apparent to every
one who will look at the subject, we reduce the number of non-attendants
to about 8, 10, or 12,000. I might add another item : many of the chil-
dren of wealthy parents are not sent to school, but are placed under the
care of private teachers and governesses. Thus we leave the number of
children who may be justly called non-attendants, at about the number of
those who are prevented from attending these schools by their parents and
priestly censors, whose jealous anxiety is so watchful lest the children might
receive any sectarian bias " hostile to their views."

The next deficiency to be accounted for is the great difference between
the registered and actual attendance at the schools ; and this is no more diffi-
cult than the other.

1. Many of the children are kept from school by their parents for the
sake of their services.

2. Children are mortals as well as ourselves, who are but " children of
lamer growth," and often are sick, or feign sickness, as the case may be.

484 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

8. Many of the parents, being poor, are obliged to resort to daily labor
for support, leaving their children at home, or in the neighborhood. Being
thus left without restraint or counsel for the day, and not feeling a desire
for books (few children of poor people do), they amuse themselves by play,
or whatever may suit their tastes or convenience.

Other details might be given, but these will serve as a clue to some of
the causes of non-attendance ; and although any one might be considered
unimportant in itself, all of them combined present an aggregate of no
inconsiderable amount. Hence the inference on this point, that something
is defective, which needs the stimulus of sectarian influence to correct it,
falls to the ground.

The Secretary then compares the attendance at country schools with that
in the city, and argues that, because there is a larger proportion in the for-
mer, the citizens of New York should adopt the district system. Let us see
whether this will stand the test. He says, " the like proportion must exist
in the city and in the interior, of those who have already received all the
education they or their parents desire, or who are engaged as apprentices, or
in employments preventing them from attendance at any place of instruc-
tion."

As we have before shown, the children leave school at about twelve years
of age in the city ; but in the country, where it is expected that the chil-
dren will assist on the farms, &c., during the busy seasons of agricultural
life, they attend principally in the winter, or not much more than half the
year ; and, to supply this absence, they attend school until they are sixteen
or eighteen years of age. Here we have, in the same fact, two causes which
make a material difference, viz. : Does the average attendance equal that of
the city ? and do not the children attend school until a period later in life
by three, four, or five years ?

The presumed insufficiency of the Public School Society, therefore, in
not educating all the children, not in private schools, has been shown to be
altogether exaggerated ; causes over which neither legislation nor school can
have control, existing in the community, and conspiring to prevent the
attendance of children.

These causes, as will be inferred from what I have above presented, are
of a social rather than a civil nature poverty, for instance, which makes its
imperious demands on the labor of the young; wide difference of language;
and, doubtless, to some extent, prejudice against our policy. Hence, if we
wish to see all our children in school, under proper training and guidance,
we must seek to improve the domestic condition of the families ; we must
give the parents the means of supporting themselves and their children.
Who will do it ?

Let us pass on to notice a few of the Secretary's arguments :

1. He thinks that the district school system is eminently fitted to prevent
sectarian influence ; " and the records of this department have been searched
in vain for an instance of abuse of the system to sectarian biases." Can any
be furnished from the records of the Public School Society ?

2. If this is the case in the district schools, why does he say, in the same

JOURNAL OF COMMERCE. 485

sentence, that each district has that kind of " religious instruction most con-
genial to the opinions of the inhabitants " ? If the population is Presbyte-
rian, it will be a Presbyterian school ; and Baptists and Episcopalians and
Romanists will feel that they are doing wrong to send their children to
places where principles " hostile to their views " are taught. If the popula-
tion (a majority) decide on having a Catholic school, or any other, is there
not an abuse of privilege ? So far, however, as I am acquainted with the
country schools, there is just the same amount of religious instruction given
in them as in the public schools of New York the reading of the Scrip-
tures. My earliest instructions were received in a district school in West-
chester county.

3. The Secretary considers it an axiom that, in all schemes of education,
there must of necessity be some religious instruction ; " and that it must
therefore be sectarian that is, it must favor one set of opinions in opposi-
tion to another." Hence all must be banished, or we must have schools
" congenial to the spirit and opinions of the inhabitants." The great argu-
ment is equality. Very well ; if a Mohammedan should come to this coun-
try and send his children to the public schools, and become dissatisfied
because the reading-books contain sketches of the impostures of the
Prophet, he sets up the claim of equality, and demands that every book con-
taining any thing derogatory to the character of Mohammed should be sub-
mitted to his examination, while he publishes an "Index Expurgatorius"
and insists that every volume in the schools throughout the city should be
blotted and mutilated to please his views. This is granted, but he demands
more : that the Public School Society be broken up, and some system estab-
lished by which he may be formed into a " district," and receive money
enough to educate his children according to his creed, " for its transmission
is a part of his religious profession ! " and, with commendable pertinacity,
so effectually plies his " equality " arguments as to conquer a whole commu-
nity. My own opinion is, that when the majority are on an equality, the
people, in democratic construction, are on an equality ; and "the term does
not necessarily involve the harassing and perplexing of a whole community
at the dictate of a few.

4. This cry of equality has been raised by the memorialists because they
think it will touch a tender chord in the hearts of the American people. It
has ; but they will find it does not vibrate in unison with theirs on this
question ; for none are more exclusive than these self-same sticklers for
equality, none more bigoted, none more arrogant.

5. But the Secretary says, knowing " that they regard as the most sacred
of duties the inculcation of those principles in the minds of their children,
we ought not to be surprised at their anxiety to exclude all that is hostile
to their views," " for the transmission of their creed is a most essential part
of their religious profession." What are these principles, the transmission
of which is so essential ? I happen to take the following :

EXCOMMUNICATION OF MR. HOGAN, PASTOR OF ST. MARY'S CHURCH,
PHILADELPHIA. By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and

486 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Holy Ghost, and the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our
Saviour, and of all celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions,
powers, cherubims and seraphims, patriarchs, apostles, prophets, evangelists,
&c., may he, Mr. Hogan, be damned ! . . . May the holy choir of the holy
virgins, who, for the honor of Christ, have despised the things of this world,
damn him ! May all the saints, from the beginning of the world to ever-
lasting ages, who are found to be beloved of God, damn him ! . . . May
he be damned wherever he be, whether in the house, or in the stable, the
garden, or the field, or the highway ; or in the woods, or in the water, or in
the Church ; may he be cursed in living and dying ! . . . May he be
cursed in his brains, in his vitals, his temples, his eyebrows, his cheeks, his
jawbones, his nostrils, his teeth and grinders, his lips, his throat, his shoul-
ders, his arms, his fingers, his veins, his thighs, his genitals, his hips, his
knees, his legs, and feet, and toe-nails ! . . . May the Son of the living
God, with all the glory of His majesty, curse him ! And may heaven, with
all the powers that move therein, rise up against him, and curse and damn
him, unless he repent and make satisfaction. Amen. So be it. Be it so.
Amen.

Are not these principles very essential, and their transmission indispen-
sable ?

6. If these memorialists find it necessary to teach their religious creeds
to their children, why do they not do it in the domestic circle, at the fire-
side ? The knowledge which they acquire at school will make them more
intelligent, and enable them better to receive parental instruction. There is
a good reason. The light which they enjoy there is calculated to break the
superstitious spell of saints, confessing to the priest, relics, absolution, pen-
ance, and give to them notions of God himself, in His Word and works,
which would conflict with the value of holy water, and dead men's bones,
and prayers measured out by chains of beads.

7. I have before referred to the principle of giving to districts " the
power of appointing their religious instruction most congenial to the feel-
ings of the population." This is the whole object of the report to adopt
a system by which any district may have any religious sentiments inculcated
which they desire. If this is not sought by the report, there is no object to
be gained by any change of system.

But the Secretary says, in closing : " If . . . any schools would be per-
verted to the purposes of a narrow and exclusive sectarianism, a remedy
might be found by giving authority to the Board of Commissioners to
investigate complaints, and to dissolve offending schools, or withhold its
share of the school money." If no religious reading of the Scriptures can
be had without sectarian influence, according to his own principle, will the
Scriptures be banished from the schools ? If, as is an axiom in his lan-
guage, " all schemes of education must convey some religious instruction,"
which, he says, must necessarily be sectarian in its tendency, will he
remove the influence by removing the religious instruction, which can be
done only by shutting our schools altogether? There is an inconsistency
here.

8. As the memorialists depend so much on equality, so let us throw our-
selves back on our democratic principle of the majority ; and as the great
mass of our citizens are in favor of the old system, let us retain it.

JOURNAL OF COMMERCE. 487

9. The Secretary has attempted to excite the jealousy of the Legislature
and the people, by saying that the Public School Society is " subject to no
control," except that the Common Council can omit designating their
schools as recipients of the public bounty.; that they are not accountable to
any authority a perpetual corporation ; that the people have no choice of
trustees, &c. This is as unjust to the trustees as it is unwise in its tendency.
There has been but little or no fault found with these indefatigable public
servants, but by the Roman Catholics, who do it on sectarian grounds, and
the aspersion contained in it is not in harmony with the just tribute of com-
mendation primarily given by him. Further, it is involving the people in a
new subject of discussion and contest. We have enough opposition and
collision without adding more.

10. The Secretary recommends the new system because it will be " vol-
untary." This has struck me as being a peculiarly happy feature in the
Public School Society. One hundred intelligent citizens devoting a great
deal of their time, .voluntarily and gratuitously, to the education of the
youth of this city, is a consideration of no small moment, and a Society
which is more efficient can seldom be found. Of all the different classes of
effort made by men for the accomplishment of any enterprise, the voluntary
exertion claims the highest place. It is more efficient because it is more
energetic ; it is more noble because it is more disinterested ; and it is more
valuable because it reaps a richer reward. Who, then, is in favor of chang-
ing this system, for one founded on the election of commissioners and trus-
tees elected by the people ? Are not the body of intelligent men now acting
in that capacity just as intelligent as if they had their mental scale guaran-
teed by the ballots of the people ?

11. The Secretary admits that it is an objectionable feature in this meas-
ure that it originated with a sect. This certainly is a powerful argument
against it. It is done at the dictation of a minority of the citizens ; this
minority always combined a religious body, and commenced on professedly
sectarian grounds. Let us, if we value our liberty if we value the har-
mony of the community if we place a just estimate on the perpetuity of
our institutions let us be very watchful against the march of sectarian
privilege. This will be a first step a great one. Make this compromise,
set this precedent, loosen the restraint which has hitherto existed, and threat
will follow demand, and discord will follow non-compliance, and rupture
will terminate in the granting of the boon sought for a privileged Church
establishment.

12. The Secretary suggests that the system he recommends will, by
exciting emulation in the different sects, bring into the school all children
not attending any. If this is a state of society which will promote the har-
mony and union of the whole, human nature will have undergone some
change. This emulation between sects, in so large and thickly populated a
city, embracing numerous denominations, will lead to unfair means for
obtaining scholars. Each school receiving a proportion of the fund depend-
ing on the number of scholars, one teacher will make one offer, another will
give a greater inducement to the children, and thus sectarian feuds, religious
squabbles, school and church quarrels, would agitate the community.

488 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

13. But, could this be avoided, he promises us something as much to be
deprecated. " The watchfulness of those who apprehend abuse may be
relied upon to detect it promptly, and to seek the needful remedy." Now,
it may be said in this case, as has. been said of party spirit, " Never was the
country so likely to be destroyed as when party spirit was prevalent
throughout the land " a remark founded on an acquaintance with human
nature.

Cabals, parties, and divisions destroyed the Koman government, ami
may, in turn, destroy ours ; and any thing which might promote euvyings,
jealousies, heart-burnings, captiousness, and the rancor of party spirit,
should be crushed rather than encouraged. The vigilance of those who
watch for abuse is very apt to be itself, in its morbid vision, the creator of
the objects it pretends to see ; and often the character of individuals and
associations is destroyed by the combination of parties and cliques. As this
vigilance sees through a very questionable medium, it is better to establish
a system not depending on the accusations of opponents, but on the confi-
dence of the people ; and as the former kind of care and watchfulness is
seldom regarded by those who have the power in their hands, its exercise
would be not only perplexing, but worse than useless.

14. Proscription would follow from both of these causes. Instead of an
argument, I will present a fact which will be its own commentator. At
Paisley, in Scotland, the schools were conducted on this principle, and the
consequence was, that the enmity became so great that one set of people
would not trade with another ; a third would not speak to the fourth, and
thus the social ties between townsmen were rudely snapped asunder by this
execrable spirit.

15. The trustees, being elected by the people, will add another item to
the political capital of electioneers. Parties will test their strength, and
the successful candidates will, of course, appoint teachers whose opinions
are not " hostile to their views," and the consequence will be, that the
school-house will become a politico-religious 'nursery, as changeable as the
sentiments and population of the several districts. If this transmission is
desirable, let the people speak for themselves.

AMERICUS.

On Tuesday evening, June 1st, a meeting of the Catholics
was held at Washington Hall, in New York City, at which
addresses were made by James W. McKeon and Bishop Hughes.
In the course of his remarks, Mr. McKeon said :

The temporary defeat of the Mil might be ascribed to the efforts of the
School Society, which had its agents watching every step of its progress
with argus eyes. The conduct displayed he was indignant to name. It was
the meekness of the dove without its innocence, the cunning of the serpent
without its wisdom. Ay, they pushed their exertions to an extremity at
which they recoiled upon themselves ; for, though the dishonorable means
resorted to effected the object, it has pulled down upon them a load of oblo-

REVIEW OF THE SCHOOL QUESTION. 489

quy from \vhich their institution could not rise unstained through series of
years of its existence. A vile, loathsome, and revolting attack upon the faith
of a large portion of the petitioners was placed, by a functionary high in
the confidence of the Society, in the hands of senators on the morning it was
supposed the vote would ~be taken on the ~bill.

In reference to the same matter, Bishop Hughes used the fol-
lowing language :

I do not say that the trustees of the School Society were themselves per-
sonally the distributors of these slanders ; but, to give you a specimen of
what was done, their agent, or one of their agents, at Albany, was detected
placing on the desks of the senators, what think you ? Why, an absurd and
abominable malediction, which they put forth as the Catholic form of excom-
munication, but which, in fact and in truth, was nothing more than a pure
fabrication of STERNE, written for his own- amusement, in his book called
" TRISTRAM SHANDY." And these high literary gentlemen, these self-consti-
tuted, peculiar, exclusive dispensers of light and knowledge and education,
were either so ignorant as not to know the true character and origin of the
document which they so industriously circulated, or, knowing its character,
they were so bigoted, and careless of honor and truth and justice and good
principle, in their anxiety to forward a bad cause, that they did not hesitate
to give the falsehood currency. . . . That Society, which has so persever-
ingly opposed every effort which we have made for redress, has abundantly
earned for itself that epithet, which has been often applied to it, of a soul-
less corporation, and has used every artifice and means in its power to vilify
and defame us and our principles. Yes, defamation is the term. I do not
say they have done it knowingly. That is not a point for me to determine.
But they have defamed us. I aver it, and insist upon it they have defamed
us with their extracts from " Tristram Shandy," and other documents of an
equally high literary character, creditable to the liberality and the preten-
sions to learning and knowledge of a body so ambitious to be the sole
instructors of the youth of the city. And I challenge them to meet me and
prove that what they have laid to our charge has any foundation in truth,
or is any thing else but defamation.

After the delivery of the great speech by Bishop Hughes,
the anonymous author of the " Brief Review " above given,
published, also anonymously, the first part of a " Review of the
School Question," in which the following passage occurs :

In the opinion of the writer, too much importance has been attached to
the simple extract which has called forth so much remark. It was given as
a fact to show the nature of the principles which would be supported by
sectarian schools, at least in part, and but a solitary remark was offered, for
the arguments and statistics were the objects of attention ; but as it has
been made so prominent a topic ever since the defeat of the bill, and the

490 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

pretext for calumniating the Public School Society, I am constrained to sub-
mit the proofs.

I am accused of defaming their faith. Now, defamation may be true or
false in its terms, but I believe it is not measured so much by these, as by
the injury effected to the reputation of any individual or cause. If I am
charged with being a libeller in the latter sense that of injuring their
cause I plead guilty ; but if in the first that of uttering falsehood I
plead emphatically not guilty.

What was the conduct of the Bishop ? Did he confront me with evi-
dence that the form had not been used ? Did he deny that any such person
as Mr. Hogan had been a pastor of one of their churches ? Did he produce
evidence that it had not been pronounced in this simple instance, if in no
other ? No, none of these ; but he pronounces it to be an INVENTION of
Sterne's, a libel, a defamation.

As nothing has been said heretofore in relation to the case of Mr. Hogan,
I shall not stop to furnish evidence which would be gratuitous, as it has not
been denied. If Bishop Hughes, however, thinks it important, and will
make his wishes known, it slw.ll ~be produced.

Instead of presenting the details of the above case, I introduce an ex-
tract from the London Quarterly fieview, for March, 1841, pp. 303, 304 (Ma-
son's American reprint), which will exhibit the similarity of the curse used
in Ireland with the one referred to above. " The examination was taken
down in order to be laid before a committee of the House of Lords, on
oath."

Q. Were you in the chapel on the day of the cursing ?

A. I was.

Q. Did you hear it ?

A. I did.

Q. What did the priest say ?

A. I'll be bound he cursed her well. . . . [The next witness came,
promising to iell all about it, to oblige Mr. , but evincing the greatest

dislike to be known to have done so.]

Q. Were you in Chapel the day the woman was cursed ?

A. I was.

Q. Did you hear it ?

A. I did.

Q. At what Mass?

A. At second Mass.

Q. Did the priest give a reason for cursing the woman ?

A. He said it was " going here and there."

Q. What did he mean by that ?

A. Because, he said, she was to and fro, going sometimes to mass and
sometimes to church.

Q. What did he say to her ?

A. He said enough, I'll be bound.

Q. What did he say ?

A. He cursed every inch of her carcass.

Q. Did he bid the people not to speak to her ?

A. He desired them not to speak to her, or deal with her, or have any
thing to do with her.

Q. Did he curse her child ? [the poor creature was pregnant at the time.]

ROMAN CATHOLIC EXCOMMUNICATIONS. 491

A. He cursed every thing that would spring from her.

Q. Did he say any thing about the child she was carrying did he curse
the fruit of her womb ?

A. I did not hear him say t/tat ; he cursed every thing that would spring
from her.

Q. How was he dressed ?

A. He threw off the clothes he had on, and put on a black dress.

Q. Did he do any thing with candles ?

A. 'Tis the way ; the clerk quenched all the candles but one, and him-
self put out that, and said, " so the light of heaven was quenched upon her
soul ; " and he shut a book, and said the gates of heaven were shut upon
her that day.

Q. What do you mean by saying ' : lie cursed every inch of her carcass " ?

A. He cursed her eyes, and her ears, and her legs, and so on every bit
of her.

. . . The neighbors of the poor woman withdrew from intercourse
with her. Shopkeepers refused to sell even bread to her. Her own chil-
dren were included in the curse, except one, who was in the service of a
Roman Catholic lady, and was prohibited from speaking to his mother.
The poor woman with whom they lodged was so tormented by the neigh-
bors that they were obliged to quit the house, and must have perished in
the street, had they not been received into the house of a Protestant ; and
when the poor creature's confinement approached, a Roman Catholic lady
prohibited the usual person from attending her, under threat of losing her
support ; and no one could be found to attend until the wife of the clergy-
man of the parish (from whom we heard this ourselves) interested herself to
obtain from the priest a reluctant permission.

The above is modern excommunication. I will now carry the reader
back to a more remote period, and show the character of the formulae used
in other days, as well as to prove that the very form so strongly objected to
was known and in use more than six hundred years before the Mrth of Sterne.

In a work entitled the Protestant Journal, for 1831, pp. 536-539, 1 find
the following historical narrative, taken from the Historian Ecclesice Evan-
geli&x in Hungaria, pp. 153-156 :

At a congregation of Protestant ministers, members of the presbytery
of the thirteen towns in Hungary which were at that time subject to the
dominion of Poland, held at Filcau, November 13, 1630, Barbara Von Grot-
tendorf, wife of Lewis Szgedi, of Varallia, complained that she was deserted
by her husband, who had avoided her society for years, and had been guilty
of violation of the laws of marriage, and prayed for divorce. Forty-five
days were allowed to Szgedi to make his appearance before this ecclesiastical
court. Notice to this effect was given him, not only by affixing his name to
the church-doors at Varallia, but he was further summoned by name every
Sunday for six weeks, at the conclusion of divine service. As the defendant
did not make his appearance at the end of this time, permission was given
to Barbara Von Grottendorf to marry another husband, John Krebell, a
goldsmith of Varallia. These circumstances being communicated to Laclis-
laus Hoszszuthoty, president of the chapter of Czepus, the latter prohibited
John Pilemann, the Protestant pastor of Varallia, from uniting them iu
marriage. As, however, Pilemann proceeded to solemnize the marriage,
Hoszszuthoty fortified himself with the authority of the cardinal, Peter Paz-
mann, archbishop of Strigonum, and primate of Hungary, and twice sum-
moned Peter Zabler, superintendent of the presbtery, John Serpilius, one of the
elders, and Pilemann himself, to appear before the archiepiscopal consistory.

492 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

They were charged with contumacy, and the president told them that
they were worthy of excommunication. The narrative proceeds :

He then procured an interdict, issued by Cardinal Pazmann against the
twenty-four pastors of the presbytery generally, and against Zabler, Serpi-
lius, and Pilemann, individually ; and further, that the sentence of excom-
munication which follows this historical notice should be publicly read at
the cathedral, on the 19th, 22d, and 27th days of December, 1632. Know-
ing the inveterate hatred of the Romish clergy, and dismayed at the effects
which they too well knew would follow from this excommunication, the
Protestants had recourse to Prince Lubemiski, chancellor of the kingdom
of Hungary, and to other persons of distinguished rank. At length, after
many negotiations and the most humiliating concessions, the intolerant pro-
vost consented to take off the excommunication on condition of one hun-
dred and thirty dollars being paid. Additional fruitless attempts were
made to propitiate him ; but finally the advocates of the Protestants suc-
ceeded in pacifying him, by paying him fifty gold crowns, on the 23d of
March, 1633.

Here follows the form of excommunication, which is different from that
first given, by its being more virulent and persecuting, cursing even their
conception, though it is nearly the same in its outlines. I make only one
short extract :

I adjure thee, O Lucifer ! with all thy imps, also with the Father and the
Son, and with the Holy Spirit, and with the human nature and nativity of
the Lord, and with the virtue of all the saints, that thou rest not night and
day until thou hast brought them to destruction, whether they be drowned
in rivers, or be hung, or be devoured by beasts, or be burnt, or be slain by
enemies ; let them be hated by every person living, or even their ghosts.

A cardinal in the true Church, standing up at the altar and praying to
the devil, as superior to the Lord of Hosts, and blasphemously uniting Luci-
fer, the prince of hell, in his invocations and imprecations, with the King
of saints ! This is the last extremity, certainly ; but probably the cardinal
had the best reason for invoking Lucifer and his imps, on account of his
more familiar acquaintance with them. It will be recollected that Sterne
was born in 1713, and that these things occurred eighty years anterior to the
Urth of Sterne, and about one hundred and thirty years before the publica-
tion of " Tristram Shandy."

This testimony, however, being merely historical, and the actors in it
having been long since numbered with the dead, it may be questioned with
the greatest coolness by any one who wishes to dispute it. I therefore pass
on to my last proof that Sterne did not invent the form of excommunication
attributed to him.

I have on the table before me a book entitled " Olossarium Archceologi-
cum : continens Latino Barbara, Peregrina, Obsoleta, et Novatse Significa-
tionis Vocabula, &c. Authore HENRICO SPELMANNO, Equite, Anglo-Britan-
no, Londini, MDCLXXXVII." On pp. 205206 of this book, I find the follow-
ing formula, which, as will be seen at the close, Spelman obtained from a
manuscript volume compiled during the reign of William the Conqueror,
who occupied the throne of England from the time of the Norman con-

EOMAN CATHOLIC EXCOMMUNICATIONS. 493

quest, decided by the battle of Hastings in 1066, until 1087, nearly seven
centuries prior to the piiblication of " Tristram Shandy."

EXCOMMOTICATIO. Ex auctoritate Dei omnipotentis, Patris, ct Filii, et
Spiritus Sancti ; et sanctum canonum, sanctseque et intemeratae virginis Dei
genetricis Marise, atque omnium celestium virtutum, angelorum, archangelo-
rum, thronorum, dominationum, potestatum, cherubin, ac seraphin, et sancto-
rum patriarcharum, prophetarum, et omnium apostolorum et evangelistarum,
et sanctorum innocentium qui in conspectu agui soli digni inventi sunt can-
ticum cantare novum, et sanctorum martyrum, et sanctorum confessorum, et
sanctarum virginum, atque omnium simul sanctorum et electorum Dei, Ex-
coinmunicamus et anathematizamus hunc furem, vel hunc malefactorem N.,
et a liminibus sanctsa Dei ecclesiae sequestramus, ut aeterni suppliciis cruci-
andus mancipetur cum Dathan et Abiron, et cum his qui dixerunt Domino
Deo, " Recede a nobis, scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus" et sicut aqua ignis
extinguitur, sic extinguitur lucerna ejus in secula seculorum, nisi resipuerit,
et ad satisfactionem venerit. Amen.

Maledicat ilium Deus Pater qui hominem creavit. Maledicat ilium Dei
Filius, qui pro homine passus est. Maledicat ilium Spiritus Sanctus, qui in
baptismo effusus est. Maledicat ilium sancta crux, quain Christus pro nostra
salute hostem triumphans ascendit. Maledicat ilium sancta Dei genetrix et
perpetua virgo Maria. Maledicat ilium sanctus Michael animarum susceptor
sacrarum. Maledicat ilium omnes angeli, et archangeli, principatus, et po-
testates, omnisque militia celestis exercitus. Maledicat ilium patriarcharum
et prophetarum laudabilis numerus. Maledicat ilium sanctus Johannes, pre-
cursor et Baptista Christi proecipuus. Maledicat ilium sanctus Petrus, et
sanctus Paulus, et sanctus Andreas, omnesque Christi Apostoli simul et
ceteri discipuli ; quatuor quoque evangelists qui sua predicatione mundum
universum converterunt. Maledicat ilium cuneus martyrum et confessorum
mirificus qui Deo bonis operibus placitus, inventus est. Maledicant ilium
sacrarum virginum chori, quae mundi vana causa honoris Christi respuenda
contempserunt. Maledicant ilium omnes sancti, qui ab initio mundi usque
in finem seculi Deo dilecti inveniuntur. Maledicant ilium coeli et terra, et
omnia sancta in eis manentia !

Maledictus sit ubicumque fuerit, sive in domo, sive in agro, sive in via.
sive in semita, sive in silva, sive in aqua, sive in ecclesia.

Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo, manducando, bibendo, esuriendo, siti-
endo, jejunando, dormitando, dormiendo, vigilaudo, ambulando, stando,
sedendo, jacendo, operando, quiescendo, mingendo, cacando, flebotomando.

Maledictus sit iu totis viribus corporis. Maledictus sit intus et exterius.
Maledictus sit in capillis. Maledictus sit in cerebro. Maledictus sit in ver-
tice, in temporibus, in fronte, in auriculis, in superciliis, in oculis, in genis,
in maxilis, in naribus, in dentibus, in mordacibus, in labris, in gutture, iu
humeris, in hannis, in brachiis, in manibus, in digitis, in pectore, in corde,
et in omnibus interioribus stomacho tenus, in renibus, in inguinibus, in
femore, in genitalibus, in coxis, in geuibus, in cruribus, in pedibus, in arti-
culis et in unguibus. Maledictus sit in totis compaginibus membrorum ; a
vertice capitis usque ad plantam pedis, non sit in eo sanitas.

Maledicat ilium Christus filius Dei vivi toto suse majestatis imperio ; et
insurgat adversus eum coalum cum omnibus virtutibus, quae in eo moventur,
ad damnandum eum nisi pcenituerit, et ad satisfactionem venerit. Amen.
Fiat. Fiat. Amen.

EXCOMMUNICATIO. Auctoritate Dei Patris omnipotentis, et Filii, et
Spiritus Sancti, et beatae Dei genetricis Marias, omniuinque sanctorum, et
sanctorum canonum. Excommunicamus, anathematizamVrS, et a liminibus
sanctae matris EcclesisB sequestramus illos malefactores N. consentaneos
quoque vel participes, et nisi resipuerint, et ad satisfactionem renerint ; sic

494 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

e-xtinguatur lucerna eorum ante viventem, in secula seculorum. Fiat. Fiat.
Amen.

Hae Excommunicationum formulae sequuntur Emendationes legum, quas
Gulielmus Conquestor edidit, in libro vocato Textus Roffensis, MS. et viden-
tur sub eo ipso sevo conditse ; quia in superioribus nusquam, quod scio, repe-
ritur beat Virginia Marise invocatio.

In Gorton's " Biographical Dictionary," vol. ii., in a notice of Sir Henry
Spelman, I find the following language : " He printed a specimen in 1621,
and in 1626 appeared the first part, entitled, ' Archaologicus in modum Olos-
sarii ad rem antlquam posteriorum folio." 1 The sale of this valuable work was
so unpromising, that the second part was not published till after the death
of the author." " His death took place in 1641, and his body was interred
in Westminster Abbey."

See also Hale's " Analysis of Chronology," 4 vols. 8vo., London, 1830, at
p. 341 of vol. iii., where reference is made to Boxhornius' u History of the
Low Countries," and Brandt's " Abridgment," vol. i. p. 6, where the said
foin may be found.

Here, then, we have the grand point decided. Bishop Hughes alleges
that the form first quoted was a fabrication of Sterne's. Now, books can be
referred to which were published eighty-seven years before the birth of
Sterne, and one hundred and twenty qr one hundred and thirty years prior
to the publication of " Tristram Shandy ; " and the volume on the table
before me is of the third edition, which was printed twenty-four years before
Sterne was torn.

In the scenes above narrated, personages of more importance than Yor-
ick, Obadiah, Captain Shandy, and My Uncle Toby, played their parts,
before any of them had even the ideal existence which Sterne gives them.
I know not how Bishop Hughes can set aside such proof, except on the prin-
ciple that " coming events cast their shadows before," and, in this case, cast-
ing an unusually long one.

It will be seen, by the extract from his speech, that he charges the Pub-
lic School Society with circulating and approving the " Brief Review,"
because they do not disclaim it,

Because they do not officiously disclaim and condemn the murder of
Thomas a Becket, they must be held responsible ! Because they do not dis-
avow the murder of Queen Anne, they must be held responsible for the con-
duct of Henry VHE. ! Because they do not condemn the burning of the
Alexandrian library by Caliph Omar, it is their act till they disclaim it or,
at least, they approve of it ! And, on the same principle, until the Roman
Catholic Church disclaims the curses above given we hold them responsible ! A
politic denial by Bishop Hughes is not sufficient ; it must come from popes,
cardinals, bishops, and priests ; for those dignitaries authorized and sanc-
tioned them. The reverend speaker must admit my application of his argu-
ment, or retract his unwarrantable abuse of the Public School Society in
relation to this matter.

If he persists in denying the truth of my evidence, as I have proved my
side of the question, if he thinks it desirable, he must produce the excom-

REVIEW OF THE SCHOOL QUESTION. 495

munication which was used in the case of Mr. Eogan. This is the alternative ;
and, in the mean time, I shall not be overawed by the legal, literary, and
ecclesiastical array of gentlemen whose research can pierce no farther into
the gloom of antiquity than the " Life and Character of Tristram Shandy."

AMERICUS.

[For the convenience of the reader the following translation of the form
of excommunication as given by Sir Henry Spelman is inserted.]

EXCOMMUNICATION.

By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and of the
holy canons, and of the pure and holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, and of all heavenly
intelligences, angels, and archangels, thrones, dominions, and powers, cherubim, and ser-
aphim, and of the holy patriarchs, prophets, and all apostles and evangelists, and holy
innocents, who in the sight of the Lamb have been found worthy to sing the new song ;
and of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and holy virgins, and of all the holy and
elect of God together, we do excommunicate and anathematize this thief, the malefactor N.,
and do separate him from the threshold of the holy Church of God, that he may be given
over to be tormented with everlasting punishments, with Dathan and Abiram, and with
those who said unto the Lord God, "Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy
ways ; " and as fire is extinguished by water, so let his lamp be extinguished, world with-
out end, unless he shall repent and make satisfaction. Amen.

Curse him, God the Father, who created man. Curse him, the Son of God, who suf-
fered for man. Curse him, the Holy Spirit, who is poured forth in baptism. Curse him,
the holy cross, which Christ ascended for our salvation, triumphing over the enemv.
Curse him, the holy mother of God, and perpetual virgin, Mary. Corse him. St. Michael,
the receiver of holy souls. Curse him, all angels and archangels, principalities and pow-
ers, and all the host of the heavenly army. Curse him, the worthy multitude of patriarchs
and prophets. Curse him, St. John, the forerunner, and particularly the baptizer of
Christ. Curse him, St. Peter, and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all the apostles an,d
disciples of Christ, together with the four evangelists, who by their preaching converted
the whole world. Curse him, the wondrous company of martyrs and confessors, that have
been found acceptable unto God by their good works. Curse tiim, the) bands of holy virgins,
who for the sake of the honor of Christ Tiave counted worthless the vanities of the world.
Curse him, all saints, who from the beginning of the world unto the end of time, are found
beloved of God. Curse him, heaven and earth, and all holy things abiding therein.

Cursed be he wheresoever he shall be, whether in the house, or in the field, or in the
way, or in the footpath, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church.

Cursed be he in living, in dying, in eating, in drinking, in hungering, in thirsting, in
fasting, in slumbering, in sleeping, in watching, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying
down, in working, in resting, [in the calls of nature,] and in blood-letting.

Cursed be he in all the powers of his body. Cursed be he inwardly and outwardly.
Cursed be he in his hair. Cursed be he in his brain. Cursed be he in the crown of his
head, in his temples, in his forehead, in his ears, in his eyebrows, in his eyes, in his cheeks,
in his jaws, in nis nostrils, in his teeth, in his gums, in his lips, in his throat, in his
shoulders, in his arms, in his wrists, in his hands, in his fingers, in his breast, in his heart,
and in all the inner parts of his body to his stomach ; in his veins, in his groin, in his
thighs, in his genitals, in his hips, in his knees, in his legs, in his feet, in his joints, and in
his toes. Cursed be he in all the structures of his limbs ; from the crown of his head to
the sole of his foot; let there be no soundness in him.

Curse him, Christ, the Son of the living God, in all the authority of his majesty ; and
let heaven, with all the intelligences that abide therein, rise up against him for his damna-
tion, unless. he shall repent and make satisfaction. Amen. So be it. Be it so. Amen.

EXCOMMUNICATION. By the authority of God the Father Almighty, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost, and of the blessed Marj\ mother of God, and: of all the saints, and of
the holy Canon : We excommunicate, we anathematize, and we separate from the thresh-
old of "the holy mother Church, these malefactors, N., and those who sympathize and
participate with them ; and unless they shall repent and render satisfaction, let their
lamps be put out before the living, for ever and ever. Be it so. So be it. Amen.

These fbr;ns of excommunication follow the emendations of law.*, approved
by "William the Conqueror, in a manuscript volume called the Textus Boffensis,
and appear to have originated at that very period, because nowhere in earli-
er times, so far as I kno\v, is found the invocation of the Virgin Mary.

496 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SCHOOL QUESTION OF 1842.

Hon. John C. Spencer The Legislature of 1842 Appointment of Committees Com-
mittee on Colleges, Academies, and Common Schools Hon. William B. Maclay
Hon.. John I. Dix Governor Seward's Message Report on the School Question
Proceedings of the Legislature Mr. Maclay's Bill Passed.

THE disappointment of the advocates of Mr. Spencer's school
bill was very great. Mr. Spencer, with the perseverance which
formed a prominent feature of his character, had sought to win
support to the measure by the elaborate report presented to the
Legislature in April. He was charged by opponents with hav-
ing " coquetted with the New York delegation all winter, to
obtain their aid in its passage." He had appeared, on one occa-
sion, before that delegation, to whom he submitted and advo-
cated his plan, Dr. William Rockwell, Joseph B. Collins, and
Theodore Sedgwick being present on behalf of the Public School
Society.

The postponement of the question by the Senate until Janu-
ary, 1842, caused the election of the members of the Legislature
for that year to be regarded, as already stated, with more than
usual interest by all parties. The candidates of the Whig, as
well as those of the Democratic party in the city of New York,
were respectively addressed by the friends of the Public School
Society in a series of interrogatories. Their support was with-
held from any candidate in favor of any change in the existing
system of public instruction, and a refusal to reply to the ques-
tions proposed was deemed as favoring such change.

The excitement in respect to the " school question " was very
great, and the election of the successful candidates turned upon
that issue. Upon the assembling of the Legislature in January
following, and before the organization of the two Houses, the
question engaged the thoughts, and was the topic of constant
conversation among leading Democrats at the Capitol. As a

GOVERNOR BEWARD'S MESSAGE. 497

party, they had much to lose by the continued agitation of the
question ; and yet, having a majority in both branches, they had
also to incur the responsibility of its settlement. With this
view, and anticipating that the subject would be laid before the
Legislature by Governor SEWARD, in his message, more than
usual care was taken in the organization of the Committee on
Colleges, Academies, and Common Schools, to which that por-
tion of the message was referred. In the House of Assembly, as
soon as the new Speaker (Levi S. Chatfield) had been chosen, he
announced among his political friends his determination of
appointing William B. Maclay, of New York, as chairman of
the Committee on Schools. Horatio Seymour (afterward Gov-
ernor of the State), and other leading men, were then members
of the body. Mr. Maclay had already served in the House dur-
ing the sessions of 1840 and 1841. At the preceding session,
the House of Assembly had chosen, by ballot, three of its mem-
bers as a committee to investigate the affairs of the New York
and Erie Railroad Company. Mr. Maclay was a member of this
committee, and was absent from the city of New York in the
prosecution of the duties assigned him during the election of the
past autumn, and had been elected without any pledge or com-
mittal to any of the parties. The presumption was, that, under
his direction, a full and dispassionate inquiry would be made in
relation to the public schools in the city of New York. He at
first declined to act as chairman of the Committee on Schools,
and urged that Gen. JOHN I. Dix, then a representative from the
county of Albany, should be appointed, alleging that his capacity
and integrity would inspire confidence, among those who were
either unwilling or unable to examine for themselves, in the
conclusions at which he should arrive, while the committee
would have the advantage derived from his past experience as
superintendent of the schools of the State. This view was ac-
quiesced in, but, on consultation with General Dix, he declined
to accept the position, and the programme of the committee
remained as originally proposed by the Speaker, with the advice
of Michael Hoffman, and other experienced members of the
party to which he belonged.

As had been anticipated, Governor Seward devoted a consid-
erable portion of his message to a discussion of the subject of
public instruction in the city of New York. The reconainenda-
32

498 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tions thus presented are given in full in the following extract
from the message :

It was among my earliest duties to bring to the notice of the Legislature
the neglected condition of many thousand children, including a very large
proportion of those of immigrant parentage in our great commercial city
a misfortune then supposed to result from groundless prejudices and omis-
sions of parental duty. Especially desirous, at the same time, not to disturb
in any manner the public schools, which seemed to be efficiently conducted,
although so many for whom they were established seemed to be unwilling
to receive their instructions, I suggested, as I thought, in a spirit not inhar-
monious with our civil and religious institutions, that, if necessary, it might
be expedient to bring those so excluded from such privileges into schools
rendered especially attractive by the sympathies of those to whom the task
of instruction should be confided. It has since been discovered that the
magnitude of the evil was not fully known, and that its causes were very
imperfectly understood. It will be shown to you, in the proper report, that
twenty thousand children in the city of New York, of suitable age, are not
at all instructed in any of the public schools ; while the whole number in
all the residue of the State, not taught in common schools, does not exceed
nine thousand. What had been regarded as individual, occasional, and
accidental prejudices, have proved to be opinions pervading a large mass,
including at least one religious communion equally with all others entitled
to civil tolerance opinions cherished through a period of sixteen years, and
ripened into a permanent conscientious distrust of the impartiality of the
education given in the public schools. This distrust has been rendered still
deeper and more alienating by a subversion of precious civil rights of those
whose consciences are thus offended.

Happily, in this as in other instances, the evil is discovered to have had
its origin no deeper than in a departure from the equality of general laws.
In our general system of common schools, trustees chosen by tax-paying citi-
zens levy taxes, build school-houses, employ and pay teachers, and govern
schools which are subject to visitation by similarly elected inspectors, who
certify the qualifications of teachers ; and all schools thus constituted par-
ticipate in just proportion in the public moneys, which are conveyed to them
by commissioners also elected by the people. Such schools are found dis-
tributed in average spaces of two and a half square miles throughout the
inhabited portions of the State, and yet neither popular discontent, nor
political strife, nor sectarian discord, has ever disturbed their peaceful in-
structions nor impaired their eminent usefulness. In the public school sys-
tem of the city, one hundred persons are trustees and inspectors, and, by
continued consent of the Common Council, are the dispensers of an annual
average sum of $35,000, received from the common school fund of the State,
and a sum equal to $95,000, derived from an indiscriminating tax upon the
real and personal estates of the city. They build school-houses chiefly from
the public funds, they appoint and remove teachers, fix their compensation,
and prescribe the moral, intellectual, and religious instruction which one

GOVERNOR SEWABD'S MESSAGE. 499

eighth of the rising generation of the State shall be required to receive.
Their powers, more effective and far-reaching than are exercised by the
municipality of the city, are not derived from the community whose chil-
dren are educated and whose property is taxed, nor even from the State,
which is so great an almoner, and whose welfare is so deeply concerned, but
from an incorporated and perpetual association, which grants, upon pecu-
niary subscription, the privileges even of life-membership, and yet holds in
fee-simple the public school edifices, valued at eight hundred thousand dol-
lars. Lest there might be too much responsibility, even to the association,
that body can elect only one half of the trustees, and those thus selected
appoint their fifty associates.

The philanthropy and patriotism of the present managers of the public
schools, and their efficiency in imparting instruction, are cheerfully and
gratefully admitted. Nor is it necessary to maintain that agents thus select-
ed will become unfaithful, or that a system that so jealously excludes popu-
lar interference must necessarily be unequal in its operation. It is only
insisted that the institution, after a fair and sufficient trial, has failed to gain
that broad confidence reposed in the general system of the State, and indis-
pensable to every scheme of universal education. No plan for that purpose
can be defended, except on the ground that public instruction is one of the
responsibilities of the Government. It is, therefore, a manifest legislative
duty to correct errors and defects in whatever system is established. In the
present case, the failure amounts virtually to an exclusion of all the children
thus withheld. I cannot overcome my regret that every suggestion of
amendment encounters so much opposition from those who defend the pub-
lic school system of the metropolis, as to show that, in their judgment, it
can admit of no modification, either from tenderness to the consciences or
regard to the civil rights of those aggrieved, or even for the reclamation of
those for whose culture the State has so munificently provided ; as if soci-
ety must conform itself to the public schools, instead of the public schools
adapting themselves to the exigencies of society. The late eminent Superin-
tendent, after exposing the greatness of this public misfortune, and tracing
it to the discrepancy between the local and general systems, suggested a
remedy, which, although it is not urged to the exclusion of any other, seems
to deserve dispassionate consideration. I submit, therefore, with entire will-
ingness, to approve whatever adequate remedy you may propose, the expe-
diency of restoring to the people of the city of New York what I am sure
the people of no other part of the State would, upon any consideration,
relinquish the education of their children. For this purpose, it is only
necessary to vest the control of the common schools in a board, to be com-
posed of commissioners elected by the people ; which board shall apportion
the school moneys among all the schools, including those now existing,
which shall be organized and conducted in conformity to its general regula-
tions and the laws of the State, in the proportion of the number of pupils
instructed. It is not left doubtful that the restoration to the common
schools of the city of this simple and equal feature of the common schools
of the State would remove every complaint, and bring into the seminaries

500 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETT.

the offspring of. want and misfortune, presented by a grand jury, on a recent
occasion, as neglected children of both sexes, who are found in hordes upon
the wharves and in corners of the streets, surrounded by evil associations,
disturbing the public peace, committing petty depredations, and going from
bad to worse, until their course terminates in high crimes and infamy.

This proposition to gather the young from the streets and wharves into
the nurseries which the State, solicitous for her security against ignorance,
has prepared for them, has sometimes been treated as a device to appropri-
ate the school fund to the endowment of seminaries for teaching languages
and faiths, thus to perpetuate the prejudices it seeks to remove ; sometimes
as a scheme for dividing that precious fund among a hundred jarring sects,
and thus increasing the religious animosities it strives to heal ; sometimes
as a plan to subvert the prevailing religion, and introduce one repugnant to
the consciences of our fellow-citizens ; while, in truth, it simply proposes,
by enlightening equally the minds of all, to enable them to detect error
wherever it may exist, and to reduce uncongenial masses into one intelligent,
virtuous, harmonious, and happy people. Being now relieved from all such
misconceptions, it presents the questions whether it is wiser and more hu-
mane to educate the offspring of the poor, than to leave them to grow up in
ignorance and vice ; whether juvenile vice is more easily eradicated by the
Court of Sessions than by common schools ; whether parents have a right to
be heard concerning the instruction and instructors of their children, and
taxpayers in relation to the expenditure of public funds ; whether, in a
republican government, it is necessary to interpose an independent corpora-
tion between the people and the schoolmaster ; and whether it is wise and
just to disfranchise an entire community of all control over public educa-
tion, rather than suffer a part to be represented in proportion to its numbers
and contributions. Since such considerations are now involved, what has
hitherto been discussed as a question of benevolence and of universal edu-
cation, has become one of equal civil rights, religious tolerance, and liberty
of conscience. We could bear with us, in our retirement from public ser-
vice, no recollection more worthy of being cherished through life, than that
of having met such a question in the generous and confiding spirit of our
institutions, and decided it upon the immutable principles on which they
are based.

This portion of the Message of the Governor was referred to
the Committee on Colleges and Schools. Some time having
elapsed, and no report having been made by the committee on
the subject, a resolution was offered in the Assembly by Hon.
John L. O'Sullivan, one of the New York city delegation, ask-
ing that the Standing Committee on Colleges, &c., be discharged
from the further consideration of the subject of common schools
in the city of New York, and that the same be referred to a
select committee. This motion was resisted by Mr. Maclay,
who placed his opposition on two grounds : 1st. That he waa

ME. MACLAY'B EEPOKT. 501

unwilling that any one should suppose that he had been indiffer-
ent to the subject which had been referred to the Standing Com-
mittee, or afraid to act upon it ; 2d. That the Secretary of State,
as would appear by a reference to his annual report, had prom-
ised a distinct report upon the subject of common schools in the
city of New York, which had not yet been communicated to the
House, and which the committee, as a matter both of use and
propriety, desired to wait for. The motion of Mr. O'Sullivan
was lost.

There was an evident disposition, on the part of the domi-
nant party in tlie Legislature, to leave the subject with the com-
mittee to which it had been referred. On the 13th of January,
Senator A. B. Dickinson introduced, in the Senate, a bill, which
was substantially that of Mr. Spencer, but failed to obtain its
reference to a select committee. On the 14th of February, Mr.
Maclay submitted to the House the following report, accompa-
nied by a bill, which was subsequently amended and enacted :

IN ASSEMBLY, February 14, 1842.
REPORT
Of the Committee on Colleges, Academies, and Common Schools, on so much of

the Governor's Message as relates to the Common Schools in the City of New

York.

Mr. Maclay, from the Committee on Colleges, Academies, and Common
Schools, to whom was referred that portion of the Governor's Message which
relates to the common schools in the city of New York, together with sun-
dry petitions praying for an alteration of the existing system of common
schools in said city, and a bill entitled " An Act to Extend and Improve the
Benefits of Common School Instruction in the City of New York," KEPORTS :

That the matters referred involved important inquiries, which have been
diligently made by the committee, with the view of presenting to the House
such conclusions as might, if adopted, tend to correct existing evils in the
system of common school instruction in the city of New York, and at the
same time extend its benefits.

The importance of universal education in a republic is so manifest, that,
while it has continually engaged the care of the Legislature, every one who
has been elevated to the Executive chair of the State has pressed it with
zealous earnestness upon the representatives of the people. Even while the
revolutionary war was still unfinished, that revered patriot, George Clinton,
in his annual speech of 1782, thus addressed the Legislature :

In the present respite from the more severe calamities and distresses of
the war, I cannot forbear suggesting to you a work which, I conceive, ought
not to be deferred as the business of peace : the promotion and encourage-
ment of learning. Besides the general advantages arising to society from

502 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

liberal science, as restraining those rude passions which tend to vice and
disorder, it is the peculiar duty of the government of a free State, where the
highest employments are open to citizens of every rank, to endeavor, by the
establishment of schools and seminaries, to diffuse that degree of literature
which is necessary to the due discharge of public trusts.

The same revered Executive, in 1798, in his last message, felt it his duty
to call the attention of the Legislature to the fact, that the benefits arising
from the establishment and endowment of academies were principally con-
fined to the children of the opulent, and to recommend the foundation of
common schools throughout the State, as happily adapted to remedy this
inconvenience, and to dispense the blessings of knowledge to the whole com-
munity.

His successor, John Jay, concurring entirely in the views of his predeces-
sor, recommended universal education as the most effective means of multi-
plying the blessings of social order, and diffusing the influence of moral
obligation.

The communications of the illustrious and patriotic Tompkins bear
ample testimony to his adherence to the liberal and statesmanlike views of
his predecessors.

In his address to the Legislature in 1816, he reminds them that, as guar-
dians of the property, liberty, and morals of the State, they were required,
by every injunction of patriotism and wisdom, to endow, to the utmost of
the resources of the State, schools and seminaries of learning. From that
period until now, the constitutional duty of the Executive to suggest for the
consideration of the Legislature such matters as are in his judgment expe-
dient, has not been deemed to have been fully discharged, without similar
manifestations of enlightened zeal for the general diffusion of the benefits
of education among all classes of the community. The unanimity of the
long line of honored statesmen who have presided over the interests of the
State in regard to this subject, while it is among the most delightful themes
of contemplation, affords the most conclusive evidence that the policy is
firmly established in the affections of the people. However they may have
differed upon other measures of importance to the public weal, on this sub-
ject there has existed no contrariety of opinion.

The powerful arguments used by successive Executives in defence of this
system, and the cheerfulness with which the people have submitted to addi-
tional burdens to sustain and extend it, would seem to render unnecessary
any observations of your committee in favor of public education ; but they
cannot refrain from noticing a suggestion, that the difficulties in regard to
the education of the young in the city of New York resulted from its being
adopted among the responsibilities of Government, and that the Legislature
ought not to extend encouragement to this great object, but leave it, like
religion, to the voluntary and unregulated action of the people.

This suggestion proceeds upon an erroneous supposition, that the per-
formance of acts of utility and beneficence to others, in the affairs of this
transitory life, is considered as of equal obligation upon the consciences of
men as the observance of those religious rites and duties which relate to
their own eternal happiness in the life to come.

ME. MACLAY'S REPORT. 503

But experience is an instructive teacher on this as on every other subject.
There are States in this Union -which consent, and States which refuse, to
establish a system of common schools ; while deplorable ignorance prevails
in the latter, knowledge and morality are found in the former, and jifst in
proportion to the efficiency and universality of their system of public in-
struction. Even in the city of New York, containing within its bounds so
great an amount of wealth and liberality, experience has fully shown the
danger of trusting to any visionary hope that adequate provision for the
instruction of the poor could be obtained by voluntary contributions alone.
The Public School Society is only sustained by moneys derived from the
common school fund, and taxes levied upon the people by law. Our statute-
book bears concurrent testimony with the codes of other civilized countries,
that the force of law must concur with the injunctions of religion, to clothe
the naked, feed the hungry, relieve distress, and educate the offspring of the
poor.

All that appertains to public instruction in the city and county of New
York, is substantially under the control of an incorporated institution known
as " The Public School Society/' The extraordinary powers of this Society
have been ably and elaborately set forth in two reports which were made to
the Legislature at its last session. This Society was incorporated in 1805.
The late Superintendent of Common Schools, after recapitulating the differ-
ent laws which have been passed in relation to it from that period to the
present time, thus concludes the summary :

Thus, by the joint operation of the acts amending the charter of the
Society, of the statutes in relation to the distribution of the school moneys,
and of the ordinance of the Common Council, designating the schools of
the Society as the principal recipients of those moneys, the control of the
public education of the city of New York, and the disbursement of nine
tenths of the public moneys raised and apportioned for schools, were vested
in this corporation. It is a perpetual corporation, and there is no power
reserved by the Legislature to repeal or modify its charter. It consists of
members who have contributed to the funds of the Society ; and, according
to the provisions of the last, act, the payment of ten dollars constitutes the
contributor a member for life. The members annually choose fifty trustees,
who may add to their number fifty more.

From the petitions of many thousand inhabitants of New York, it ap-
pears that objections are widely prevalent against this organization of pub-
lic schools in that metropolis, and that the system so far fails to obtain yie
general confidence, that a very large number of children are left destitute
of instruction. By the report of the acting Superintendent of Common
Schools, made at the present session of the Legislature (Assembly Document
No. 12), it appears that the whole number of children in the State (exclu-
sive of the city of New York) between the ages of five and sixteen, is
583,347 ; and of that number, 562,198, being more than ninety-six hun-
dredths, attend the common schools ; while in the city of New York, out
of the number of 65,571 children between the same ages, the whole number
reported by the commissioners of that city as attending the schools was only
41,385, being less than sixty hundredths of the number, although the share

504 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

of common school moneys distributed by the State and expended in the
city, amounting to $35,415.10, was equally large in proportion with that
expended in other counties of the State. But in addition to that sum, an
equal amount of $35,415.10, together with the additional sum of $60,000,
was raised by the Common Council, swelling the total amount entrusted
with the Public School Society, for the purpose of education in one year,
to the sum of 130,830.20 ; while the whole sum expended in all the rest of
the State, and by means of which 562,198 scholars are taught, is only
$581,555.75 ; making the expense in the city of New York more than $3.15
for the instruction of each scholar, while in the other parts of the State it
is less than $1.04 for each scholar. In other words, the expense of instruc-
tion under the public school system in New York is more than three times
the expense of instruction under the district school system.

The comparison between the number of children attending school in the
country and the city is still more favorable to the former, if the supposition
of the acting Superintendent of Common Schools be correct. There are, he
says, upon an average, about fifty-five children instructed in each of the dis-
tricts reporting ; and assuming an equal average number to be under in-
struction in each of the 239 districts from which no reports have been
received, the aggregate number of children between five and sixteen, exclu-
sive of the city 'of New York, not taught in any district school, would
amount to only about 8,000.

Apart from these considerations, it can no longer be concealed or denied
that the failure of the public schools to accomplish the objects contemplated
by the establishment, results, in a great degree, from a disinclination on the
part of many parents to entrust these schools with the education of their
children. The fact is, indeed, abundantly shown in the number of petitions
now before the Legislature for a change in the present system, that it
requires no additional proof. During the last sixteen years, the Public
School Society, as it appears from its own admissions, has had to defend its
monopoly against the struggles of discontented masses of the population.
Evidence more conclusive and affecting is seen in the multitudes of children
in the streets and on the wharves of the city, growing up to the rights and
responsibilities of citizens, but strangers to the simplest elements of learn-
ing, and acquiring only the education of vice. The rule of universal expe-
rience is, that people in the country are less zealous for the diffusion of edu-
cation, and submit with less willingness to the burdens imposed for its
maintenance, than those residing in cities.

But here the rule is reversed. The statistics of the school system
throughout the State show that ignorance is clearing off, like a thick fog,
from the agricultural districts, and settling with ominous portent over the
emporium of the State.

Now, those who oppose any change of the system, have attempted to
account for BO extraordinary a result by explanations ingenious and plausi-
ble. But, so long as facts are facts, it will strike every man of ordinary
reflection, that there is a deeper cause than any they have felt at liberty to
assign or admit. That cause is complex, not simple.

MR. MACLAY'S EEPOET. 505

In the first place, there is something exceedingly incongruous with our
republican habits of thinking, in the idea of taking the children of a popu-
lation approaching half a million of souls, taxing them at the same tinjp for
the support and maintenance of the. schools, and, when both the children
and taxes are furnished, withdrawing both out of the hands of guardians
and taxpayers, and handing them over to the management of an irresponsi-
ble private chartered company. Such a concentration of power into mam-
moth machinery of any description is odious to the feelings, and sometimes
dangerous to the rights, of freemen. The genius of our institutions is, to
distribute power where it can be done, and, where it cannot, to define a<nd
restrict it. When thus distributed, it may not be capable of producing the
same amount of good, but then its capacity for evil will be diminished in
the same ratio ; and, if it go wrong, the remedy is always more simple,
apparent, and easy of attainment.

In the next place, the population of the city of New York is by no
means homogeneous ; on the contrary, it is the object of education to make
it so. Any system based upon the supposition that that homogeneousness
now exists, and all will therefore absolutely conform, or can be obliged to
conform, assumes the end to be attained, and overlooks the means of its
accomplishment.

The error is the same which lies at the basis of established churches ;
and the failure of the public schools, however assiduous or efficient these
schools may be, arises from the very cause which prevents, in this country,
the existence or toleration of an established system of religion.

The Public School Society have alleged that they are not more a monop-
oly than the different boards for hospitals and other charters in the city of
New York. But there is this manifest difference in the two cases, which
strips the argument of any force or pertinency : the inmates of these chari-
table institutions are cast upon the State, and she must find guardians for
them. Not so the children of the city. They are surrounded by their
parents, guardians, and friends, who have opinions which demand respect
and rights which cannot be disregarded.

The committee, after mature reflection, are unable to accord their assent
to the inference which the advocates of the Public School Society derive
from this argument. In the first place, supposing which is untrue that
the constitution of the Public School Society, and its peculiar and over-
shadowing powers and privileges, were analogous to the other institutions
referred to, the abuses or important objections of the one could not be dis-
proved or corrected by admitting that the others were monopolies. Many
contend that the banking institutions of the State are satisfactorily conduct-
ed, and accomplish the purposes of their establishment ; but what should
we think of their understanding, should they advance this as an argument
to prove that the actions of many of these institutions had not resulted in
disgrace and calamity ? When confined within narrow boundaries, possess-
ing limited powers, affecting few interests, and conducted with devoted
assiduity and energy, a corporation may, and often does, accomplish much
public good. But the concentration of vast powers, the enlargement of the

506 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

sphere of operation, and the disregard or violation of popular rights, or
even popular sentiment, will render any corporation intolerable.

If is too late to argue that private chartered corporations, with extraor-
dinary powers and privileges, are more suitable or efficient agents for public
objects than the community acting under general laws. But the question is
not upon the merits or defects of other institutions ; it is, whether the Pub-
lic School Society has or has not failed to accomplish the great object of its
establishment the universal education of the children of the city of New
York. That it has signally failed, has been shown by the statistics of the
schools ; and there is, moreover, incontrovertible proof in the fact that nearly
one half of the citizens of the metropolis protest against the system, and
demand its modification.

- The withholding of public confidence has been felt by the Public School
Society itself, and they have endeavored humanely, but fruitlessly, to re-
move it. They heretofore employed benevolent females to induce the poor
to send their children to the schools. They next obtained from the Com-
mon Council an ordinance of a compulsory nature ; and they have now
public agents, at salaries, who are engaged in the labor of recruiting for the
schools ; but all in vain.

Such, then, is the evil to be corrected. But what is the remedy ? The
committee confess that this, as in every similar instance, is the most difficult
question. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the evil began with a departure
from the confessedly equal and just system of common school education
which prevails in all the other parts of the State ; and it can only be effect-
ually and satisfactorily corrected by bringing home the education of the
young of the city to the business and bosoms of their parents. The com-
mon school system of the State successfully and admirably accomplishes
that object ; and the committee therefore recommend that the system shall,
as far as it is practicable, be extended to the city and county of New York.

In accordance with these views, they submit a bill, providing that, here-
after, there shall be elected, in each ward of the city, three commissioners
and two inspectors of common schools, and extending to the city so much
of the general law of the State as relates to the powers and duties of these
officers. This change, in harmony with the general system, contemplates
the division of the city into a convenient number of school districts, and
directs that the people shall elect trustees, who shall, in regard to common
schools therein erected, establish, maintain, and regulate common schools in
such districts, subject to the general regulation of the school commissioners,
who are to apportion the public moneys among the several schools in the
ratio of persons interested therein.

In this recommendation the committee unanimously concur.

In accordance with the foregoing views and recommendations, your com-
mittee have instructed their chairman to introduce a bill.

The following review of the report of Mr. Maclay appeared
in the New York Evangelist of March 3d. After quoting the
material portions of the report, the review continues:

BEVTEW OF MR. MACLAY's BEPORT. 507

It is not our purpose to enter into a protracted discussion of the princi-
ples which should characterize any system of public education, and the
measures requisite to accomplish this object of fondest pursuit with every
citizen who values the progressive development of the powers of human
society under a free government, and who regards as the most important
lever in the overturning of all systems of despotism, and abodes of crime,
the intellectual and moral cultivation of the people. "We wish to present a
few facts in relation to that point to which the committee has attached the
greatest importance : Has the Public School Society fulfilled its trust ? And
we here remark, that the report of the committee contains many palpable
errors, which are calculated to give a very unfavorable character to the
existing system of public schools in this city, which we feel it our duty and
privilege to correct.

I. The report of .the committee represents that the number of children in
the State, exclusive of this city, of the school age, between five and sixteen,
is 583,347 ; attending school, 562,198, or ninety-six per cent. In the city,
there are 65,571, while the number represented as attending school was
41,385 less than sixty per cent.

In the first place, we contend the accuracy of these returns, and for sev-
eral reasons. The carelessness and negligence of inspectors, the desire to
make the largest returns, for the purpose of obtaining larger rates from the
comptroller, not from fraud, but circumstances favoring these returns and
their acknowledged incorrectness. In proof of these positions, we copy,
from the report of the Commissioners of Common Schools of this city for
1841, the following curious facts. See also report of Superintendent of
Common Schools, Schedule F, in full.

In 1824, the number of children residing in the districts was 383,500 ;
number under instruction, 40j3,940 ; being an excess of children taught over
those residing in the districts of 19,440 !

In 1825, children in the districts, 395,586 ; children under instruction,
425,586 ; excess, 30,000 !

In 1827, children in the districts, 419,216; children taught, 441,826;
excess of pupils over children in the districts, 22,640 !

In 1839, in twenty-seven counties in the State, there was an excess of
more than 25,000 children reported as receiving instruction over the chil-
dren of the legal age in the districts !

It would be arguing but little for the good sense of our readers, were we
to comment upon such gross errors as these, and to attempt to convince
them that the returns of last year are as liable to be full of errors as those
of preceding years. But what an overpowering argument in favor of the
district system ! It actually educates from twenty to thirty thousand chil-
dren more than reside in the State !

II. Upon the report, then, which we may fairly presume to be incorrect,
the committee enter into a comparison between the State and this city, and
represent that, of 65,571 children of the legal age, only 41,385, or a little
less than sixty per cent., receive instruction, making a consequent deficiency
of 24,186.

508 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The limit prescribed by law to the school age is from five to sixteen
years of age. Now, it is a fact so evident that it is almost superfluous to
present our corrected statement, that, in the country, children are engaged
at agricultural labors during the summer, and attend school in winter the
full time allowed by law ; while, in the city, that mass of the people who
take advantage of the public schools are poor, and require the pecuniary
assistance of the children to obtain their own subsistence. Hence, they are
withdrawn from school at about twelve years of age ; and it is a recorded
and well-known fact, that only seven per cent, of the children in the public
schools are over twelve years of age. If, then, we regard the school age as
consisting of eleven years from five to sixteen we must deduct four elev-
enths from the duration of pupilage among the city population, it being
here but seven years. This will reduce the deficiency 23,844, and leave less
than 500 unprovided for. But three elevenths will be more nearly correct,
the number over twelve years making nearly this difference ; and we have
but 6,383 uninstructed about one fourth of the number stated by the com-
mittee.

In addition to the fact thus shown, the children instructed in private
schools will leave but few of the juvenile part of our population who
receive the " education of vice " spoken of by the committee, because the
doors of the Public School Society are shut against them. And when it is
recollected that many of these children are poor, we can easily see the social
and domestic causes which tend, more or less, throughout the Union, to
make the actual attendance at school much less than the number on register.

But this is not all. We have presented some of the ridiculous errors
which crowd the returns of the district system in the country ; we will now
take a single specimen from the towns of the State, and bring forward our
neighboring city of Brooklyn, which enjoys that system, to show the rela-
tive percentage of attendance assuming that the returns from cities are
more correct than those from among scattered portions of the population.

The report of the Commissioners of Common Schools for 1836 exhibited
the following state of the schools :

In the First District, there were 1,651 children ; under instruction, 210
or twelve and three fourths per cent.

In the Fourth District, 215 children ; under instruction, 55 a fraction
over twenty-five per cent.

In the Sixth District, 300 children ; under instruction, 51 a fraction
over one sixth, or sixteen per cent.

Lest we should appear to select a very unfavorable year by which to
make the comparison, we again refer to the report of the Superintendent of
Common Schools for 1840 and 1841, by which it appears that, in 1840, there
were 6,206 children, of whom 2,120, or thirty-four and one sixth per cent.,
were under instruction. In 1841, there were 7,966 children in the districts,
of whom 2,274 only twenty-eight and four sevenths per cent. were under
instruction.

If these things are done in Brooklyn, what might we not assume of parts
of the country where the population is distributed over wide districts ?

REVIEW OF MB. MA.CLAY'8 KEPORT. 509

HI. The district system is more expensive than that which now exists in
this city, and we are obliged in this respect also to differ from the report of
the committee. They report that the expenses of instruction in this city is
$3.15 for each child, while in the districts it is less than $1.04 per scholar.
How such statements can be placed before an intelligent Legislature, is
somewhat remarkable ; but they must be corrected.

1. The amount of money paid by the State, out of its treasury, is $1.04,
while no mention is made of the amount raised by the inhabitants of the
districts themselves. See 61, 62, 63, 65, 68, 78, 79, 85, 86, and others, of
Article Fifth, Title I., chapter xv., part 1, of the Revised Statutes, in rela-
tion to district schools. The money paid by the State is the deficit in the
necessary expenses of the district, and is not the entire expense of the
schools.

2. The money paid by the State to the Public School Society is
$35,415.10 ; number of children reported, 41,385 ; the expense to the State
being less than one dollar. The balance raised by the Common Council cor-
responds in nature to that raised by the districts ; the city being regarded
as one vast district, and the commissioners the acting trustees of the school
moneys.

3. The number of children in the schools of this city being received as
reported, we have the total expenses of these schools, $115,799.42, divided
among 41,385 children, or the whole charge about $2.70 ; while the full
expenses under the district system, in funds raised by the districts and by
the State, is $3.15 the cost of our public schools, as erroneously stated by
the committee.

4. "We refer again to the Brooklyn commissioners for another fact.

In the Second District, 38 children were instructed, and the money paid
by the commissioners was $114.81 or $3.02 and a fraction.

In the Sixth District, 51 children instructed ; $196.75 paid from school
fund or a few cents less than four dollars.

The total expenditure, however, ftbin the public fund, for 1,197 chil-
dren, was $1,604.26 or $1.34 and a fraction for each child considerably
more than the sum stated by the committee, independent of the sum raised
by the respective districts.

IV. It will be seen at a glance, by any one who appreciates the necessity
of fairness in making comparisons between different localities and between
different classes of the population, that inferences drawn from data so incon-
gruous as those furnished by thinly-settled and densely populated districts,
must be defective and hazardous when great changes in public policy are
predicated upon them. A brief comparison between New York and cities
and towns where the district system exists, is, therefore, the only true
method for determining the relative efficiency and value of the two systems
under discussion.

To avoid tediousness in these comparisons, we will take the aggregate
of several towns Albany, Brooklyn, Hudson, Troy, Utica, Schenectady,
Rochester, and Buffalo. In 1840, the number of children was 28,125 ; under
instruction, 12,182 or 3,761 children less than one half, or forty-three and
one third per cent.

510 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

In 1841, children residing in the same towns, 29,908 ; under instruction,
18,195 or only forty-four and one ninth per cent.

From these facts, gleaned from the public records of the State, we may
learn that the district system in the towns is less favorable to the intellect,
ual growth of the young than the Public School Society of this city ; and
when we keep in view the numerous chances of error as displayed by the
returns before given from the country districts, we hazard nothing in saying
that the closest scrutiny only makes more apparent the great superiority of
our present excellent schools.

The report of the committee states that the population (according to
their erroneous manner of extending the school age in this city to sixteen
years, instead of confining it to twelve, as we have shown is the proper
limit) of children instructed in the public schools, is sixty per cent. ; while
the last comparison just given showa that, in the thickly-populated towns
under the district system, the proportion is only from forty-three to forty-
five per cent. a difference of twenty-five per cent, in favor of our existing
institutions. The mean percentage for several years is about thirty in
Brooklyn, under the district system, and sixty in New York, under the pub-
lic schools ; we have a difference of one hundred per cent, in favor of the
Public School Society. In Williamsburgh, only fourteen and one third per
cent, are returned as under instruction !

V. It is folly to expect efficiency in any system which is not under the
administration of competent and faithful directors ; and the important fea-
ture of supervision and visitation speaks incomparably for the praise of the
zealous and worthy trustees of our Public School Society, when contrasted
with the maladministration and paralysis which characterize the district
system. The last report of the trustees states that they had made 14,142
visits to the schools under their charge during the previous year ; averaging
130 visits to each school! In Brooklyn, which we prefer to quote as an
example, on account of its contiguity, eight schools had been visited three
times, or one visit to three schools during a whole year !

"With such incontestable facts before us, we are astonished that any one
can for a moment attack an institution of such decided superiority; and
much more, that a committee of the Legislature should present such a mass
of ex parte and perverted statements to the consideration of that body.

VI. The report states $130,000 were paid to the Public School Society
during one year. Now, this is the amount of the money distributed to all
the institutions for common school instruction, of which the Society re-
ceived $120,271 ; making a difference of about eight per cent, in this state-
ment also, in favor of the Society. We see no reason why exaggeration
should mark every step of this report, in even the slightest particulars.

We might multiply facts ad infinitum almost, but the foregoing are suffi-
cient to demonstrate the erroneous and palpable absurdities which have-
crept into the report of the committee, and which we must correct in order
to counteract the tendency it would otherwise have to injure our public
institution in the estimation of our fellow-citizens throughout the State an'l
the country at large.

REVIEW OF MR. MACLAY ? S REPORT. 511

VII. But, while these facts are before us, we cannot omit to bring for-
ward the testimony of the Commissioners of Common Schools of Brodklyn,
in favor of our public school system, and which is worthy of most serious
consideration from the fact that they wish to be relieved from the incubus
of the district system. They remark as follows :

We may be proud of the beauty and healthfulness of our local position,
contrasted with our elder and sister city, New York ; but in our public
school system we are far, very far behind her, in all its essential elements.
Having visited many of the schools under the charge of the Public School
Society in that city, with a view of obtaining information which might be
of service in conducting our own, we deem it but a just tribute to say, that
we regard them as admirable models of imitation, and think, if she has any
institutions of wjiich she may boast, those public schools are entitled to the
foremost rank.

That the defective condition of our schools results mainly from their
being conducted on the isolated district system, we entertain no doubt ; nor
is this a hasty conclusion. This conviction, long since entertained, has been
deepened by time and investigation ; for, however well adapted that system
may be to a country or village population, our own experience, and that of
other cities in our State, have fully evinced that it is not adapted to the
exigencies of a city population. We therefore hope that the attention of
your board will be early directed to obtain from the Legislature of our State
an act for the organization of a Board of Education for our entire city ; and,
in making this suggestion, we feel assured that we embody a sentiment pre-
vailing to a wide extent in our community. Indeed, we may summarily
say, that the reasons which would so obviously forbid an attempt to con-
duct the municipal administration of our city, by nine distinct corporations,
acting without concert, are equally applicable in conducting a system of
popular education for our youth.

Our population is proverbially floating in its habits, and the wave that
lands a class of it, peculiarly needing common school instruction, in one dis-
trict to-day, to-morrow conveys them to another. If the parent finds no per-
manent resting-place, the children should be able to fiud their level on the
floor and in the healthful atmosphere of a well-conducted school-room ; and
this would be realized had we such a system as has been suggested.

In view of these facts, which crowd upon us at every step of our exami-
nation, we are more forcibly impressed with the belief that the district sys-
tem would be a destructive blow to the cause of educa-tion in our city.
And if we are to regard the unimpeachable evidence contained in the
archives of the State, we must resist every step which is taken to impose it
upon us, for we are firmly convinced that it is incompetent to promote the
great purposes of education in our city.

VHL The advantage of having a general board, in preference to leaving
this cause to the action of the popular will, is denied by the committee, and
is scornfully treated as an anti-democratic principle, which is, in the words
of Mr. Spencer, " entirely hostile to the spirit of our institutions." We
would not be understood as impeaching the capacity of the people to man-
age the education of their own children, but we must record the deplorable
truth, that the almost universal experience of the country system shows it
to be incapable of inspiring that interest in its operations which, the com-
mittee apprehend, will be its inevitable tendency. We hazard no unwar-
rantable assertions, but appeal again to the ea-perimentum cruris of fact and

512 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

recorded testimony to bear .us out, and present a comparative statement
which will be its own commentator.

We have before repudiated the idea of comparing a densely-populated
and commercial seaport like New York with thinly-settled agricultural dis-
tricts, and preferred to compare cities and towns under the district system
with this city. Brooklyn being, in part, a commercial city, with a consider-
able shipping interest, and the citizens being linked to New York by social
and business ties which make it a part of this city, in one sense, because
many reside in one who do business in the other, is the most pertinent
instance which can be adduced. What, then, are the facts as before stated
in relation to these towns, and particularly Brooklyn ? According to the
report of the Superintendent of Common Schools for 1840 and 1841, about
forty-four per cent, of the children were under instruction ; while in Brook-
lyn (taken as a single instance), which more nearly resembles New York
than any other city in the State, by the report of the commissioners for
1836, 1,197 children, out of a population of 4,756, or twenty-five and one
fifth per cent., received instruction in these schools. Now, if the system is
calculated to bring out the action of the people in favor of the schools, it
would be manifested by the number of children sent, the prosperity of the
schools, the number of times visited, and the progress made by the schol-
ars ; while all of these data prove beyond dispute that very little regard is
paid to the schools by parents or instructors, and the popular rights of
parents to educate their own children is disregarded by them, and the
young are abandoned to the withering influence of apathy and ignorance.

We regard the whole of this movement, therefore, in appealing to the
democratic feelings of the people and of the Legislature, as an insidious
effort to carry this proposed change to its consummation, in order to accom-
plish indirectly what the intelligence and patriotism of the whole commu-
nity shrank from with dread and amazement the favoring of a large and
politically powerful sect, who know their strength and are determined to
use it to the utmost advantage. The tendency of opening the administra-
tion of the schools as proposed, will inevitably be, to make them the sub-
ject of political influences in the election of commissioners and inspectors,
and of sectarian cupidity in the exercise and operations of the schools. To
deny this, would be to deny the history of mankind, the universal expe-
rience of the human race, and to argue in opposition to that predominant
principle of the soul which is the main-spring of its action, self-love, wheth-
er it be private or public, individual or collective, confined to persons or
guiding the policy of nations. This controlling principle will lead to meas-
ures having party and sectarian aggrandizement for their object, which will
disregard the sacredness of the public weal, or the unfettered and unbiassed
character and objects of public expenditures.

Facts, too positive to admit of a shadow of denial, come again to our
aid.

At our last election for members of the Legislature, a religious sect, upon
whose united strength at the ballot-box depends the decision of every elec-
tion, made the alteration of our public school system a matter of conscien-

REVIEW OF ME. MACLAY's REPORT. 513

tious scruples, and, accordingly, could not give their vote to any man who
would not favor their demands for a change. Thus, " fearing to offend
God " by neglecting facilities, as citizens, to produce this change, they pre-
pared and voted upon a ticket of their own choice ; and it is a fact emi-
nently worthy of notice and serious consideration, that ten members of the
New York Legislature were placed in their seats by the votes of this sect
who unite to place their religious preferences and claims in contact with the
ballot-box the chairman of the committee himself being one of them ; a
sect which has thoroughly identified itself with this change, and whose
journals declare that their course is regarded with anxiety and encourage-
ment by the members of the same faith in the Old World. With this glar-
ing fact before us, will any presume' to doubt that repetitions of this con-
duct will be continually recurring whenever opportunities present them-
selves ? Here, then, is this principle of self-love illustrated beyond dispute,
in the effort at sectarian aggrandizement at the ballot-box.

It may be objected, that the bill does not contemplate any sectarian
appropriation. But we ask, Will the committee, or will any one, deny to
" the people " the free exercise of a right which they are so zealous in
thrusting into their hands ? Will they interfere in the free choice of " the
people " in educating their children as they will, after they have opened the
course to them ?

Another feature in this movement is to be much deprecated : the opera-
tion of the law will be to place in the hands of one sect the disposal of six
or eight hundred per cent, more of the school fund than belongs to them by
virtue of their tax-paying ratio. We hope we shall not subject ourselves to
the imputation of harshness or meanness in making the following compari-
son, but we think it is pertinent and forcible. We take this illustration
because it is the strongest, and will exhibit the principle in its true light.

That part of the population which has originated and strenuously car-
ried on this contest against the present system, and whose immediate benefit
is contemplated by it the Roman Catholic is, according to their own
authenticated statements, about one tenth of the population of the State.
Grant that they number one seventh in the city, we would therefore have a
population of 45,000 Roman Catholics. We will allow one half as males
(which is too much), we have 22,500 ; one half of these regarded as adults,
would give 11,250 persons of an age qualified to hold property by law.
Now, if we assume that one tenth of these are holders of real or personal
taxable property to the amount of $5,000 each, we have, as the aggregate
amount held by this class of .the population, $6,250,000, or two and a half
per cent, of the real and personal taxable estate of the city. Taking this
standard as being nearly correct, two and a half per cent, of the school fund
would be a little over $3,000 as their pro rata proportion of the public
money, if shared in the ratio of taxes paid.

In the absence of data which exhibit the relative amount paid to the

Comptroller by different denominations, such exhibits not coming within

the provisions of a democratic people in the public records, we think we

have been liberal in estimating, first, the number of property-holders as one

514 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tenth ; and second, when we bear in mind that a large part of this denomi-
nation are poor emigrants, we do not hazard much in saying that their
aggregate property is not over that above estimated.

Now, although they amount to one seventh of the population, we will
assume that only one twentieth of the children of the public schools are
Roman Catholic, which will be about 2,000 ; and these, at the cost of their
education, receive the benefit of nearly twice the amount paid by their
parents to the public fund.

We would not have entered into such a comparison, especially where we
are obliged to make estimates, because it may be regarded as invidious, but
the frequent appeals about " taxpayers' rights " have induced us to do it in
order -to show that the rights of a large proportion of taxpayers who dissent
from them will be invaded, by taking from them and their children a large
annual sum, and appropriating it to the support of religious principles and
doctrines to which they can never subscribe. Lest we should be accused of
proceeding on false assumptions, we introduce the testimony of Bishop
Hughes, who is better acquainted with the condition of his people than our-
selves. On page 24 of his speech at Carroll Hall, he remarks :

They (the Public School Society) proposed to purchase the only school-
house our humble means have enabled us to erect during sixteen years.

In a speech at Washington Hall he spoke of

The poor, the degraded, and indigent children, who were deprived of
education by the Public School Society.

On page 11 of the address of the Roman Catholics, we find the follow-
ing language :

Although most of us arc poor, still the poorest man amongst us is
obliged to pay taxes from the sweat of his brow, in the rent of his room or
little tenement.

We hope we shall give no offence to any ; but when a great and serious
charge is enforced by arguments based upon pretensions of which these ex-
tracts are the real truth, we are obliged by our duty as citizens, if we regard
no higher incentive, to bring out and submit to the consideration of our
fellow-citizens and the Legislature, every thing which may tend to the equi-
table and righteous adjustment of this dispute.

Having shown that they cannot, according to their own statements in
reference to their " humble means " which are made the ground of appeal
to the action of their fellow-citizens pay a larger proportion of the taxes
than we have estimated, we deprecate any measure which will throw into a
determinate sectarian channel any portion of the public fund, as it would
be dangerous in precedent, hazardous in adoption, and destructive in its
operations.

We also submit, in this place, another fact : the Roman Catholic Orphan
Asylum has been receiving, for a number of years, an annual appropriation
from the common school fund, which last year amounted to $1,625.46, in
addition to the advantages of the public schools. Hence, this appropria-

REVIEW OF MR. MACLAY's REPORT. 515

tion, and any additional sum, diverted from its public use, would be an un-
constitutional and unjust taxation of all sects for the sectarian schools of
one denomination. In other words, they would receive the largest appro-
priation, because they would have the largest number of public school
pupils, while they pay only a trifling percentage of the taxes. The injus-
tice of this need only be shown to be felt by all.

We have predicated upon pretty good premises that they pay two and a
half per cent, of the taxes, while they are ce seventh of the population.
According to the report of the committee, there are 65,571 children of the
legal age in the city ; one seventh of the children would be 9,368, who
would receive the appropriation. In other words, one class of the popula-
tion, who pay one fortieth, or two and a half per cent, of taxes, would
receive one seventh, or fourteen and two sevenths per cent, of the public
fund. Stated in dollars and cents, it would be one seventh, $18,000, instead
of one fortieth, or $3,000. If our citizens are willing to be taxed according
to their religious belief, and receive back again in the same ratio, so let it
be ; but we do not wish to see the people pay taxes as citizens, receive
money as citizens, and expend it as sectarians.

The operation of this principle will more or less affect every denomina-
tion according to their wealth or numbers, while the richest, who have no
children at the public school, will not receive their proportion at all.

The foregoing estimates are not given as being strictly correct. But as
an alteration in one item will require a corresponding change in its con-
relative estimates, the result will not be found to vary much from that above
advanced. We have attained a proximate truth sufficiently correct for all
practical purposes.

The argument that they are taxpayers because consumers, is no stronger
than the other ; for if we take the relative amount of property held, we
may easily form an opinion of the relative amount of consumption, the
property, in general, being regarded as the index to the capability and
social rank of its possessors.

The Constitution of this State, section 8 article 2, provides that

The free exercise and enjoyment of religious professions and worship,
without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed in this State
to all mankind.

Here we have freedom of opinion guaranteed, and the laws of the lanti
will extend that protection which all must receive ; but there is a wide dif-
ference between protection and patronage. This is a distinction it will be
well to observe, for protection is not intended to encourage a demand for
patronage, which would violate the constitutional rights of others, by tak-
ing from one class of citizens the taxes which "belong to them," and appro-
priating them to the support of another. It would not better the law to
make it applicable to all, for then all sects would receive a patronage from
the Government for the education of their children, which would be but the
incipient step to encroachments of a more alarming character. But while
the distribution of the public fund is regulated as contemplated by the act,
a direct patronage would be extended to the poorest sect, which, as an

516 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

inevitable necessity, would receive the largest share of the public money,
because it has the largest number of children who would become its recipients.

But what would be done, in the midst of this sectarian squabble, with
those who do not belong to any religious denomination ? Are they to have
no consideration ? Are their rights to be disregarded, and their children
be obliged to attend sectarian institutions, or grow up without instruction ?
These are questions which merit some thought, at least when we know that
a very large part of the community are not actual professors of any religious
belief. ******

An important statement made by the committee is, that the people have
lost confidence in the Public School Society, and desire a change. Now,
they must be unacquainted with the views and feelings of the people of
this city, or they would not have hazarded such an assertion. So far as our
observation tends to convince us, and the almost unanimous voice of the
intelligent, virtuous, and high-minded portion of the community may be
regarded as expressive of their feelings, we fearlessly assert that the Public
School Society does enjoy the confidence of the higher classes of the people ;
while the following items, taken from a large number of others, contained
in a document of the highest authority, will show whether the confidence
of the poor and laboring classes has been withdrawn from the public
schools :

Of the parents of children who attend these schools, there are, black-
smiths, 493; bakers, 148; butchers, 224; carpenters, 323; cartmen, 943;
cabinetmakers, 502 ; laborers, 1,477 ; masons, 416 ; printers, 158 ; shoe-
makers, 945 ; seamen, 248 ; tailors, 579 ; widows, 1,461 ; washerwomen,
253 ; weavers, 200 ; ship-carpenters, 176.

In drawing to a conclusion, we recur to the question with which we
started : Has the Public School Society fulfilled its trust ? and we answer,
If facts, and evidences, and records, and the testimony of its opponents
themselves, are to be regarded, we can emphatically say, It has.

The committee regard as an important effect of education, its tendency
to make society as equal and homogeneous as possible ; and they might well
have added, that the institutions for education must themselves possess this
feature, which is one of the most valuable of the characteristics of the pub-
lic schools of our city. A family of children residing in the Third Ward
may remove to the Seventeenth, and enter the same class and pursue the
same lessons which they left in the other school. Thus a uniform and per-
fectly homogeneous system of education diffuses its light and benign influ-
ence over the whole city, and says to all, " Venias ! Come, without money
and without price 1 " It is impossible for us to conceive how the district
system, with its local dissimilarity, and different methods of operation and
instruction and books, and conflicting sentiments, can be any other than the
most discordant and heterogeneous.

Mr. Barker moved that the bill be recommitted, with instruc-
tions to add to it a section providing for a reference of the sub-
ject to the electors of the city of New York at the next charter

PROCEEDINGS IN THE ASSEMBLY. 517

election, and after the same shall have passed the Legislature,
and that it should not become a law unless a majority of the
electors voting gave their votes in its favor.

Mr. Barker supported his proposition by stating that it was
not usual for him to interfere in the concerns of other counties.
But the members from New York, Herkimer, and Genesee
(Messrs. Maclay, Loomis, and Smith) would at least deem the
proposition a democratic one. The matter was local. There
was as much propriety in submitting the question to the people
as in the case of the Croton Water Works Bill.

Mr. Weir, of New York, continued the debate, and con-
cluded by asking the mover to withdraw his resolution. Mr.
Barker declined, saying that he was too much of a Democrat to
do so.

Mr. Maclay said he trusted that the good sense of the House
would reject the proposition, whatever the mover might think
of it. It was true, as a general remark, that in this State, where
elections occurred at brief intervals, where public measures of
the least importance were discussed with great freedom, and
where any man of ordinary observation might anticipate, with a
reasonable degree of certainty, the course of public opinion,
these appeals to the people were entirely unnecessary, except on
very important and rare occasions. He did not deem this to be
one of those occasions.

In saying so, he desired to be understood as yielding to none
in a sincere wish, neither to go below nor beyond the wishes of
his constituents, but to reflect, as truly as he was able, their sen-
timents and opinions. In this connection, however, it was wor-
thy of remark, that the people of the city, neither by petition
nor through the press, had asked that this matter be referred to
them for a decision. He had taken some pains, during that and
the preceding session, to inform himself on this subject, and he
could state that he had never heard an individual express a
desire for such a reference as was proposed. The public mind
had settled down upon the conviction that the common school
system of the city of New York was in contravention of the lib-
eral spirit of our free institutions, and not calculated to diffuse
the benefit of education as widely as was desirable and essential.
The time for action had now come, and he besought his political
friends in the House not to commit so great an error as to suffer

518 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

this question to be mingled with important political questions
which were to come up at a future election. He appealed to
such as regarded the education of the masses as one of the great
securities of free government, to contrast the condition of the
city and county as presented in the reports from the public offi-
cers, and especially in the fact that, in New York alone, there
were nearly three times as many (twenty thousand) children who
attended no school whatever, as in the whole State beside. It
was in the power of the Legislature to apply the correction, not
. by procrastination, but by a law which would bring these chil-
dren within the public schools without infringing the conscien-
tious rights or opinions of any of our fellow-citizens.

The debate was continued by Messrs. Davezac, Powell,
Smith, Warren, Humphrey, Loomis, Grout, Swackhamer, Bar-
ker, E. G. Baldwin, and D. R. F. Jones. The result was the
rejection of all amendments, and the reference of the bill to the
Committee of the Whole.

Late on the evening of the 12th of March, the bill was taken
up for discussion. Mr. McKee moved that the House adjourn,
which was lost by a tie vote. Mr. Mead expressed the hope that
the bill would be postponed, owing to the lateness of the hour
and the fewness of the members present. Mr. Baldwin, of New
York, and others, opposed the passage of the bill, to whom Mr.
Maclay replied, stating that there were two classes or divisions
of persons in New York as related to this subject. One class
was composed of those who were satisfied with the present
school system, and the other of those who desired a change.
To the former, the bill proposes to leave the schools as they
were ; to the latter, it gave schools regulated as common schools
were in every other part of the State. It was as fair a proposi-
tion, as considerate to existing interests, as could be presented,
and he trusted the House would act upon it with as little delay
as practicable. Upon a division, it was found that a quorum
did not vote, and the House adjourned.

On the 21st of March, the bill coming up on its third read-
ing, Mr. E. G. Baldwin addressed the House in opposition to its
passage, and concluded by moving to postpone the final question
until the next day.

Mr. Maclay expressed a hope that the motion would not pre-
vail, and moved that it be laid upon the table, which was car-

PROCEEDINGS IN THE ASSEMBLY. 519

ried. Mr. D. S. Wright then moved that the bill be recommit-
ted to the Committee on Colleges, &c., with instructions to add
a provision submitting the question to the decision of the people
of the city of New York at an election. The motion was lost
by a vote of twenty-one in the affirmative and fifty-six in the
negative.

Mr. Lawrence moved the reference of the bill to the Com-
mittee on Colleges, with instructions to report the following
amendments as an additional section :

And the said supervisors shall, in the apportionment of the moneys
appropriated and raised for the support and encouragement of common or
district schools in the city of New York, apportion and divide the same to
and among the several wards, according and in proportion to the average
number of children over 5 and under 16 years of age, who shall have actu-
ally attended the common or district schools therein the preceding year,
which shall have been kept open at least nine months in the said year.

Mr. Baldwin, of New York, moved to amend the amend-
ment, by adding thereto the words, " and that no religious doc-
trine or tenet shall in any manner be taught, inculcated, or prac-
tised, in any of the common or district schools in the city of
New York."

Mr. Maclay resisted the amendment of Mr. Baldwin, on the
ground that it was not contained in the general school law of
the State, and was a stigma sought to be fastened upon the
friends of the measure then under discussion, as well as upon
people of the section of the State which he in part represented,
and who were as worthy of being trusted without any such
enactment as the inhabitants of any other portion of the State.

The amendment of Mr. Baldwin was, however, adopted by a
majority of five ; but when the question recurred, and was taken
on the original motion of Mr. Lawrence as thus amended, it was
lost. The bill was finally passed in the Assembly, by a vote of
sixty-four in the affirmative and sixteen in the negative.

After the Speaker had declared the bill passed, a suggestion
was made, that it required a vote of two thirds of all the mem-
bers on altering the powers of the Corporation of New York,
and an appeal was taken from the decision of the chair.

Mr. Maclay had anticipated this objection, and had referred
the chairman of the Committee on Two Thirds Bills to the fol-

520 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

lowing precedents, to show that acts in relation to Supervisors
had been modified by subsequent general acts : The People
ex rd. Phoanix vs. The Supervisors of the City and County of
New York, 1 Hill's Keports, 362-368 ; The People ex rel. Up-
ham vs. "Whiteside, 22 Wendell's Eeports, 14, 15 ; "Warner and
Ray vs. Beers, 22 Wendell's Reports, 103-189 (in Error), with
opinion of Bradish in this case. Mr. Humphrey, of Tompkins
county, chairman of the Committee on Two Thirds Bills, rose in
his place, and stated that it was the opinion of the committee,
and his own, that the bill before the House was a majority bill.
The appeal was then withdrawn, and the bill sent to the Senate,
and in that body referred to the Committee on Colleges, &c.,
consisting of Mr. H. K. Foster, of Oneida, John Hunter, of
Westchester, and Erastus Root, of Delaware.

The vote in the House can scarcely be regarded as the
strength of the opposition to the measure. That opposition was
reserved for the Senate. In that body, all of the senators from
what then constituted the First Senate District, composed of
New York, Richmond, and Kings counties, Messrs. Furman,
Franklin, Yarian, and Scott, were opposed to any change in the
school system of New York. Mr. Foster, the chairman of the
Senate committee, called upon Mr. Maclay, and stated that,
while he himself approved of the bill, it was not usual to at-
tempt to carry a local bill through the Senate in opposition to
the wishes of the representatives from the district to be affected
by it. In this dilemma, Mr. Maclay stated that the defeat of the
bill at the present time, as was well known, would enure to the
benefit of their political opponents, and that, aside altogether
from the merits of the question, it was not uncharitable to sup-
pose that this consideration had its weight with Messrs. Furman
and Franklin. The case was different with Messrs. Scott and
Varian, the Democratic senators. If they could show any objec-
tion to the bill on the score of public good, it was entitled to be
considered and received. For this purpose, Mr. Maclay pro-
posed that a meeting should be called at the room of Senator
Hunter, and that he and Mr. Foster, Messrs. Yarian and Scott,
and himself, should be present, when the whole matter could be
discussed more freely and dispassionately than in the Senate.
The meeting was accordingly held, all the parties just named
being present. Mr. Maclay proposed that the bill should be

THE SCHOOL LAW OF 1842. 521

read section by section, and that any objection to any portion of
it should be made ; and, were none made, the sections not
objected to should be deemed to be approved. This was accord-
ingly the course adopted. Mr. Varian objected to the whole
bill, and was opposed to any change whatever in the then exist-
ing laws. Mr. Scott stated that he was fearful that, if the elec-
tion for school officers and trustees took place at the same time
as the other elections in the city of New York, that the streets
of New York would be drenched in blood, and he therefore pro-
posed that, if the bill was to be pressed to a vote in the Senate,
a provision should be added to it by which the officers to govern
the schools should be elected in the month of June in each year.
In reply, Mr. Maclay expressed his own preference for a separate
election of school officers, but that he had omitted it in the bill,
under an apprehension precisely the reverse of those entertained
by Judge Scott. So far from believing that any such uncom-
mon interest or excitement would attend the election of these
officers, he feared that the people, as a general thing, would neg-
lect the duty of voting, and that, on this account, he had pro-
vided the election should take place at the same time as that for
other officers. He would, however, cheerfully yield his opinion
on this point. He accordingly drew a section providing for the
election of school officers in the month of June following, and
this was approved by Mr. Foster, and subsequently added to the
bill, which was passed April 9th, and received the signature of
the Governor. It is as follows :

AN ACT

To Extend to the City and County of 2feic York the Provisions of the General
Act in Helation to Common Schools.

The people of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-
bly, do enact as follows :

SEC. 1. There shall be elected in each of the wards of the city and
county of New York, two commissioners, two inspectors, and five trustees
of common schools, who shall be elected by ballot, at a special election to
be held on the first Monday of June in each year, by the persons qualified to
vote for charter officers in the said wards, and to be conducted in the same
manner, by the same inspectors, at the same ward districts, and subject to
the same laws, rules, an<J regulations as now govern the charter elections in
said city.

The commissioners of common schools so elected shall constitute a Board
of Education for the city of New York, a majority of whom shall consti-

522 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tute a quorum ; they shall elect one of their number president of said board,
who shall preside at the meetings thereof, which shall be held at least as
often as once in three months ; and they may appoint a clerk, whose com-
pensation shall be fixed and paid by the supervisors of said city and county.

The commissioners so elected in each ward shall be the commissioners
of schools thereof, with the like powers and duties of commissioners of
common schools in the several towns in this State, except as hereinafter pro-
vided.

The said inspectors of common schools so elected in the several wards
shall have the like powers and be subject to the same duties with the inspec-
tors of common schools of the several towns of this State, except as herein-
after provided. '

The trustees of common schools so elected in their respective wards shall
be the trustees of the school districts which may be formed and organized
therein, with the like powers and duties as the trustees of school districts in
the several towns in this State, except as hereinafter provided.

SEC. 2. All such provisions of the third', fourth, fifth, and sixth articles
of Title Two, chapter fifteen, part first, of the Revised Statutes, and of the
several acts amending and in addition to, and relating to the same, not
inconsistent with the provisions in this act contained, shall be, and the same
are hereby, declared applicable to the city and county of New York.

SEC. 3. For all the purposes of this act, each of the several wards into
which the said city and county of New York now is, or may be hereafter,
divided, shall be considered as a separate town, and liable to all the duties
imposed ; and entitled to all the powers, privileges, immunities, and advan-
tages granted by the said third, fourth, fifth, and sixth articles of Title Two,
chapter fifteen, part first, of the Revised Statutes, to the several towns in
this State, so far as the same are consistent with this act.

SEC. 4. The forty-fourth section of the act entitled " An Act to Amend
the Second Title of the Fifteenth Chapter of the First Part of the Revised
Statutes, Relating to Common Schools," passed May 26, 1841, is hereby
repealed ; and all the other sections of the said act not inconsistent with the
provisions of this act, are hereby declared applicable to the city and county
of New York.

SEC. 5. No compensation shall be allowed to the commissioners, inspec-
tors, or trustees of common schools for any services performed by them ; but
the commissioners and inspectors shall receive their actual and reasonable
expenses while attending to the duties of their office, to be audited and
allowed by the supervisors of said city and county.

SEC. 6. The said commissioners of common schools of each ward are
hereby authorized to appoint a club, whose compensation shall be settled
and paid by the Board of Supervisors.

SEC. 7. Whenever the trustees elected in any ward shall certify in writ-
ing to the commissioners and inspectors of common schools thereof, that it
is necessary to organize one or more schools in said ward, in addition to the
schools mentioned in the thirteenth section of this act, it shall be the duty
of said commissioners and inspectors to meet together and examine into the

THE SCHOOL LAW OF 1842. 523

facts and circumstances of the case ; and if they shall be satisfied of such
necessity, they shall certify the same under their hands, to the said Board
of Education, and shall then proceed to organize one or more school dis-
tricts therein, and shall procure a school-house, and all things necessary to
organize a school in such district, the expense of which shall be levied and
raised pursuant to the provisions of section nine of this act ; and the title
to all lands purchased by virtue of this act, with the buildings thereon, shall
be vested in the city and county of New York.

SEC. 8. Whenever the clerk of the city and county of New York shall
receive notice from the Superintendent of Common Schools of the amount
of moneys apportioned to the city and county of New York, for the support
and encouragement of common schools therein, he shall immediately lay the
same before the supervisors of the city and county aforesaid.

SEC. 9. The said supervisors shall annually raise and collect by tax, upon
the inhabitants of said city and county, a sum of money equal to the sum
specified in such notice, at the same time and in the same manner as the
contingent charges of the said city and county are levied and collected ;
also, a sum of money equal to one twentieth of one per cent, of the value
of real and personal property in the said city, liable to be assessed therein,
to be applied exclusively to the purposes of common schools in said city ;
and such farther sum as may be necessary for the support and benefit of
common schools in said city and county, to be raised, levied, and collected
in like manner, and which shall be in lieu of all taxes and assessments, to
the support of common' schools for said city and county.

SEC. 10. The said supervisors shall, on or before the first day of May in
every year, direct that a sum of money equal to the amount last received by
the chamberlain of said city and county, from the common school fund, be
deposited by him, together with the sum so received from the school fund,
in one of the incorporated banks of the said city and county (each bank to
be designated by the said supervisors), to the credit of the commissioners
of common schools in each of the said several wards, in the proportion to
which they shall respectively be entitled, and subject only to the drafts of
the said commissioners respectively ; who shall pay the amount apportioned
to the several schools enumerated in the thirteenth section of this act, to the
treasurer of the societies or schools entitled thereto, or to some person duly
authorized by the trustees of such societies or schools to receive the same.

SEC. 11. So much of the seventh article of Title Second, chapter fifteen,
part first, of the Revised Statutes, and the several acts amending and in
addition to. and relating to the said article, as is specially applicable to the
city and county of New York, and all other acts, and all provisions therein
providing for, or directing, or concerning the disbursing or appropriation
of the funds created for or applicable to common school education in the
city and county of New York, and all and every provision for raising any
fund, or for the imposition of any tax therefor, so far as the same are incon-
sistent with this act, are hereby repealed.

SEC. 12. All children between the ages of four and sixteen, residing in
said city and county, shall be entitled to attend any of the common schools

524 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

therein ; and the parents, guardians, or other persons having the custody of
care of such children shall not be liable to any tax, assessment, or impo-
sition for the tuition of any such children, other than is hereinbefore pro-
vided.

SEC. 13. The schools of the Public School Society, the New York Orphan
Asylum School, the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum School, the schools of
the two Half-Orphan Asylums, the school of the Mechanics' School Society,
the Harlem School, the Yorkville Public School, the Manhattanville Free
School, the Hamilton Free School, the Institution for the Blind, the school
connected \vith the Almshouse of the said city, and the school of the asso-
ciation for the benefit of Colored Orphans, shall be subject to the general
jurisdiction of the said commissioners of the respective wards in which any
of the said schools now are, or hereafter may be, located, subject to the direc-
tion of the Board of Education, but under the immediate government and
management of their respective trustees, managers, and directors, in the
same manner and to the same extent as herein provided in respect to the
district schools herein first before mentioned in said city and county ; and,
so far as relates to the distribution of the common school moneys, each of
the said schools shall be district schools of the said city.

SEC. 14. No school above mentioned, or which shall be organized under
this act, in which any religious sectarian doctrine or tenet shall be taught,
inculcated, or practised, shall receive any portion of the school moneys to be
distributed by this act, as hereinafter provided ; and it shall be the duty of
the trustees, inspectors, and commissioners of schools in each ward, and of
the deputy Superintendent of Schools, from time to time, and as frequently
as need be, to examine and ascertain and report to the said Board of Edu-
cation whether any religious sectarian doctrine or tenet shall have been
taught, inculcated, or practised in any of the schools in their respective
wards ; and it shall be the duty of the commissioners of schools in the sev-
eral wards to transmit to the Board of Education all reports made to them
by the trustees and inspectors of their respective wards. The Board of
Education, and any member thereof, may at any time visit and examine any
school subject to the provisions of this act, and individual commissioners
shall report to the board the result of their examinations.

SEC. 15. It shall be the duty of the said Board of Education to apply
for the use of the several districts such moneys as shall be raised to erect,
purchase, or lease school-houses, or to procure the sites therefor ; and also to
apportion among the several schools and districts provided for by this act,
the school money to be paid over to the commissioners of schools in each
ward, by virtue of the tenth section of this act, and shall file with the cham-
berlain of said city and county, on or before the fifteenth day of April in
each year, a copy of such apportionment, and stating the amount thereof to
be paid to the commissioners of each ward ; which apportionment shall be
made among the said several schools and districts according to the average
number of children over four and under sixteen years of age, who shall
have actually attended such school the preceding year. But no such school
shall be entitled to a portion of such moneys that has not been kept open at

THE SCHOOL LAW OF 1842. 525

least nine months in the year, or in which any religious sectarian doctrine or
tenet shall have been taught, inculcated, or practised, or which shall refuse
to permit the visits and examinations provided for by this act.

SEC. 16. The commissioners of schools of the respective wards, when
they have received from the chamberlain of said city and county the money
apportioned to the several schools and districts in their several wards, shall
apply the same to the use of the schools and districts in their several wards,
according to the apportionment thereof so made by the said Board of Edu-
cation.

SEC. 17. The said commissioners of each ward shall, within fifteen days
after their election, execute and deliver to the supervisors aforesaid a bond,
with such sureties as said supervisors shall approve, in the penalty of double
the amount of public money appropriated to the use of the common schools
of their respective wards, conditional for the faithful performance of the
duties of their office, and the proper application of all moneys coming in
their hands for common school purposes ; such bond shall be filed by the
said supervisors in the office of the County Clerk.

SEC. 18. This act shall take effect immediately.

526 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XIV.

HISTORY FROM 1840 TO 1853.

Position of the Society Views of the Board of Trustees Policy of the Board
Trustees' Hall Completed Annual Exhibit Powers of the Society under the
Law of 1842 Erection of New Buildings Amendments to the Law High
School School for Italians Change of Official Year Public Schools Nos. 17
and 18 Josiah Holbrook Natural History Text-Books Uniformity of System
Committee on Condition of the Schools Corporal Punishment Female Asso-
ciation Death of Robert C. Cornell, President of the Society Proceedings of
the Society Public School No. 18 Board of Education and Normal Schools
Controversy of the Board of Education with the Society, relative to New Build-
ings Proceedings of both Boards Speeches of Hiram Ketchum, John L. Mason,
and Joseph S. Bosworth, Esqs. Law of March 4, 1848 Death of Lindley Mur-
ray, President of the Society Sale of Property in Oak Street Deficiency
Application to the Board of Education Transfer of Property Proposed Amend-
ments to the School Law Union of the Board of Education and the Society Pro-
posed Loan Sale of Property in Twenty-Fifth Street Sale of Public School
No. 10.

TUE importance of the controversy relative to the school
fund, and the uncertainty which hung over the result, served as
an obstacle to any marked change in the system, while the de-
mand upon its resources had already reached a point at which
the Society fonnd itself encumbered with about $103,000 of in-
debtedness. The long-cherished plans of the trustees were there-
fore compelled to await the issue of the contest before any fur-
ther considerable outlay could be made for the expansion and
elevation of the system.

The decision was, however, obtained in 1842, by the passage
of the act creating the Board of Education, and the alternative,
which had been impending so long, had fallen upon the Society.
It was, to wait patiently until the structure they had reared
should become remodelled and made to harmonize with the new
scheme, or to continue under the restrictions it imposed, as long
as might be, and then surrender its trust to the city. The light
in which the new law was regarded may be seen from the fol-
lowing observations contained in the annual report for 1842 :

VIEWS OF THE SOCIETY. 527

After a successful career of thirty-seven years, during which it has been
their lot, under the blessing of Divine Providence, to be the humble instru-
ments of conveying the benefits of moral and literary instruction to many,
very many thousands of the children of their fellow-citizens, both native-
born and of foreign origin, it has pleased the Legislature of our State to
enact a statute which, the trustees fear, will result in subjecting their noble
institution to the blighting influence of party strife and sectarian animosity.

The glory of their system its uniformity, its equality of privilege and
action, its freedom from all that could justly oflend, its peculiar adaptation
to a floating population embracing an immense operative mass, unable, from
their circumstances, to devote many years to educational pursuits is
dimmed, they fear, forever.

The boast of our city, that in her public schools the children of the rich
and the poor, of the American and the foreigner, all mingled as a band of
brothers, imbibing feelings and acquiring sentiments of an equality of rights
and privileges, both as citizens of this great republic and children of our
common Father, in whose sight all the people of the earth are as one, is
overthrown.

How far and how long the board may be able to continue their schools
under the intricate provisions of the " act," they are, at this time, unable to
ascertain. It may be sufficient to say, that the simple, comprehensive, and
compact system matured through so many years of assiduous examination
and careful adaptation to its object, is about to be impaired, if not de-
stroyed, by the introduction of another of complex character a system
which, if not impracticable, is, in their judgment, ill-suited to a city popu-
lation.

Some of the fears entertained by tlie trustees were not long
after realized, by the changes gradually introduced, and the im-
pediments which arose in the way of their success. The history
of the " district system " in New York City has yet to be writ-
ten, and its progress and development will exhibit the operation
of one of the grandest educational experiments ever made.

The trustees of the Public School Society, although prevent-
ed, by a prudent caution, from entering upon any plans for
increasing the number of their schools, or advancing the grade
of studies, improved the time by a jealous and careful scrutiny
of the schools, and the endeavor to remove every thing that
could impair their usefulness, or diminish the confidence of the
community in the system. It was their constant aim to pre-
serve, in all its integrity, a scheme of popular education ren-
dered eminently honorable by the names of distinguished men
who had been interested in it from its inception, and to hand it
down to their successors in a form massive and enduring, and as

528 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

faultless as practical wisdom, enlightened philanthropy, and lib-
eral endowment could make it.

During the year 1840, the building erected for the use of the
Society as a Trustees' Hall was completed, and furnished in a
plain but appropriate style v Apartments were assigned for the
offices, depository, and two primary schools. A portion of the
building was also adapted for the use of a clerk, who had charge
of the house, and assisted in the general business of the Society.

In 1842, Samuel F. Mott resigned his office as treasurer, and,
at a meeting of the Board held July 14th, Anthony P. Halsey,
the secretary, was elected to fill the vacancy ; and, at the same
meeting, Joseph B. Collins was chosen to fill the post .vacated
by Mr. Halsey.

The average number of pupils in the schools, as appears by
the annual exhibit, was 24,671, of which 1,329 were colored chil-
dren.

The question of power soon arose as to the right of the Soci-
ety to erect new buildings under the law of 1842, and to appro-
priate moneys for certain purposes which were specially pro-
vided for under the supervision of the Board of Education. The
system had been brought to such uniformity and harmony, that
a scholar could leave one school and go into a class in another,
and there continue the same lessons, in the same books, as
though he had only changed the teacher ; but the new law
entrusted the schools to the independent government of the local
boards of school officers of the wards. The trustees were anx-
ious to prevent this system from becoming established, and
authorized the Executive Committee to secure, if possible, the
repeal of the law, or, at least, such declaratory amendments as
should continue the power of the Society to erect buildings, and
to do all the other acts contemplated by its charter. The com-
mittee pressed the matter upon the attention of the Legislature,
and that body, at its next session, adopted such amendments as
seemed to meet the wants of the Society.

One of the measures which had long been contemplated by
the trustees, was the establishment of a High School, or Normal
School, of elevated character, for the preparation of teachers ;
and, during the year 1843, the proposition was renewed, and
received the attention of the board.

In the early part of the same year, a proposition was made

SCHOOLS FOR ITALIANS. 529

for the establishment of schools for Italians, to be conducted on
principles similar to those of the schools for Germans. The
matter was referred to the Primary School Committee, who sub-
mitted to the Executive Committee, on July 6th of that year,
the following report :

The Primary School Committee, to whom was referred the subject of
opening a school to educate exclusively Italian children of this city,

RESPECTFULLY REPORT :

1. The desired object can be better attained by the attendance of the
Italian children at our primary schools ; for experience proves that a foreign
language can be more readily acquired by a person in attending a school
where his own language is unknown, " necessity " being the most speedy
and thorough teacher.

2. In educating children in our schools, it is intended to give them hab-
its and feelings adapted to our institutions and Government ; and when a
foreigner adopts our country as his home, it is expected that he should sub-
scribe to our forms, and particularly to our system of education, which is
intimately and inseparably connected with our forms of government.

3. When foreigners are in the habit of congregating together, they
retain their peculiar national customs, prejudices, and feelings ; they there-
fore remain much longer unsettled, and are not as good members of society
as they would otherwise be. This is apparent to all who are acquainted
with our German school. Children attending that school, as is well known,
retain their national costume, manners, and feelings ; while those German
children who mingle promiscuously in other schools, lose all trace of nation-
ality.

4. Children, like adults, are clannish. It is difficult to conduct a school
composed of foreigners, with a foreign teacher, without exciting continual
prejudices between it and our other schools.

Finally, information has been obtained which induces the committee to
believe that the more intelligent class of Italians do not desire such a school,
and that, like most of the better class of Germans, they would prefer that
those of their countrymen who come here with good intentions should be
Americanized as speedily as possible. This result, in the opinion of this
committee, will be most easily and promptly attained by the attendance of
their children at our primary schools.

The report was accepted and adopted, and the committee dis-
charged from the further consideration of the subject.

Inconvenience had arisen from the fact that the annual meet-
ings of the Society, and the close of its fiscal year, occurred dur-
ing the month of May, while those of the Board of Education
corresponded with the other public departments of the city, and
dated from the 1st of January. Application having been made
34

530 ' . THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

to the Legislature, the tinge was changed by a law passed on the
23d of March, 1844:. The time of the stated meetings of the
trustees was also specified to be the first Fridays of January,
April, July, and October.

During the year 1843, Public School No. 17, in Thirteenth
street, near the Seventh avenue, was built upon the ground pur-
chased some time previously ; and, in 1844, No. 18 was estab-
lished by the hiring of premises for the two upper departments.

A new and very attractive feature was introduced into the
schools in the summer of this year. Mr. JOSIAH HOLBKOOK, who
was zealously devoted to the introduction of scientific lessons,
had, for several years, resided the greater part of his time
in the city, laboring to promote a taste for the natural sciences
among the children of the various schools and institutions.
After having given undoubted proofs of the success of his
method of teaching and illustration, the subject was formally
recognized by the board, and one hour a week was appropriated
to the preparation of maps, drawings, specimens of minerals,
geometrical solids, diagrams, &c., for exchange with the pupils
of schools in other cities and towns, thus stimulating a system
of artistic and scientific exchange, which called out the sympa-
thies and the enthusiasm of the pupils. The annual report for
1845 makes the following record of the new studies thus intro-
duced :

At the suggestion of Mr. X HOLBROOK, to whose untiring exertions the
cause of education ia largely indebted, the board has authorized the school
sections to permit a limited portion of time to be occupied by the pupils in
preparing specimens of writing, mapping, and drawing, with a view to the
exchange of such specimens for those of other schools in this and the other
States. It was thought that such an interchange of the results of mental
and artistical labor on the part of the children would excite a healthful
rivalry, and produce a more rapid and full development of their faculties.
Through the above-named gentleman, numerous specimens of the kind re-
ferred to were forwarded to the " Department of Common Schools," in the
office of the Secretary of State at Albany ; and, in acknowledging the
receipt, Mr. Randall, the General Deputy Secretary, has paid a high but
well-merited compliment to the pupils of the public schools. In his letter
to Mr. Hoi-brook, this enlightened, practical, and most indefatigable officer
says:

The young gentlemen and ladies who have furnished these neat and
beautiful specimens are entitled to the approbation not only of the depart-
ment, but of every enlightened friend of education. They will be carefully

JOSIAH HOLBROOK. 531

preserved for the examination and inspection of the members of the Legis-
lature, and others upon whom the interests of elementary instruction are
dependent for encouragement and support. And I beg to assure the young
ladies and gentlemen engaged in these interesting and improving pursuits,
that their progress and attainments will be watched with the utmost anxiety
and solicitude by this department, and by-those having in charge the numer-
ous public schools throughout the State ; that the specimens they have
already furnished, and may hereafter furnish, will be laid before the general
convention of superintendents at Syracuse, in April next, and compared
with similar specimens from other parts of the State ; and that in this, as
in every other branch of intellectual science, they must be careful above all
things to bear in mind that, whatever attainments they may make are to be
regarded only as a successive series of means for the improvement of their
mental and moral being, their advancement in sound knowledge, and their
progress in wisdom and goodness.

In consequence of the condition of the treasury of the Soci-
ety, and a question as to how far the full development of this
system would involve the board in expenditure, were a grand
central school-exchange to be established, the plan of Mr. Hoi-
brook was encouraged by the grant of certain facilities, and a
room for his collections of specimens, but no considerable ex-
pense was incurred. Mr. Holbrook continued his labors with
great success, so far as his means enabled him, and visited other
cities and localities. He continued his explorations and collec-
tions from time to time until the year 1851, when his useful and
honorable career was closed by a fatal accident, while he was
alone upon a geological tour. On a visit to Virginia, near
Lynchburg, he went out in the pursuit of his favorite objects,
and was not again seen until his body was found at the river's
side, at the foot of the cliff. It was supposed that he went too
near the edge of the precipice, and fell from the brink upon the
rocks beneath. His death was much lamented by thousands
who had been stimulated to intellectual activity by his lessons
and his plans.

The new system of ward schools having been in operation
about two years and a half, some of its defects had become ap-
parent, and, among others, the want of uniformity in the text-
books, instruction, and classification. The report of January,
1845, contains the following remarks upon this dissimilarity :

Convinced, by every year's experience, of the great importance to the
rising generation in the humble walks of life, of uniformity in the books
used in the schools, and in the course of instruction adopted in them, it is a
matter of regret to the board that a similar uniformity does not prevail in
all other schools for that class of our city. Limited, by their circumstances,

532 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

to a comparatively short period for the acquisition of school learning, and
being eminently migratory in their character, the trustees have ever found
great economy in time and mental labor by maintaining a system which fur-
nished the same books and the same method of instruction throughout their
widely-spread establishment. With the industrious poor man, time is em-
phatically money ; with his children, so far as education is concerned, it i
more than money. Not only the individual welfare of the future citizen
calls loudly for the profitable occupation of the brief period allotted to edu-
cation, but it is vitally essential to the best interests of our common
country.

At a special meeting of the board, held September 12, 1843,
a committee of " one from each section, chosen by the section,"
was appointed, to examine and report upon the condition of the
schools. This committee was continued from year to year, and
presented reports and recommendations upon the various topics
which were suggested by their investigations. In the early part
of 1845, they submitted reports, one of which related to corpo-
ral punishment in the schools. The following resolution was
adopted on the recommendation of the committee :

Hereafter no corporal punishment, by blows or otherwise, shall be in-
flicted on any pupil or pupils in presence of the school, or during school
hours, but after the school is dismissed, and then in the presence of the
assistant or monitors, or both, with such number of large scholars as may
be necessary for witnesses in case of complaint of any aggrieved party ; and
in no case shall such punishment be inflicted until after proper admonition,
parental in its character, be given, with a view of convincing the delin-
quents of the impropriety of their conduct, and the necessity of reforma-
tion ; and no stripes or blows to be applied to the head, or any part of the
body other than the back, near the shoulders.

A proposition to give a pecuniary reward to the teacher who
should successfully conduct his or her school without corporal
punishment, was rejected ; but a resolution granting a certificate
for the disuse of the rod twelve months, was adopted.

In March, 1845, the " FEMALE ASSOCIATION " communicated
to the board that they were prepared to surrender the rooms in
No. 5 which they had occupied for their school, and to discon-
tinue it. The section of No. 5, and the Property Committee,
were authorized to attend to the transfer, and the principal sum
devised by Col. Henry Rutgers, on which the Society had paid
$45 annual interest, became the property of the Society.

During the month of May, the Society was again bereaved
of its presiding officer, ROBERT C. CORNELL being called to rest

DEATH OF EGBERT C. CORNELL. 533

from his earthly labors. Appropriate resolutions were passed
by the board, and the following " minute " was entered upon
the record :

It becomes the painful duty of the board to record on their minutes a
notice of their late president, ROBERT C. CORNELL.

On Tuesday, May 20, 1845, Mr. Cornell went to his office apparently in
good health, resumed his official duties -with his accustomed assiduity, and
was constantly occupied in the discharge of those duties until half-past 2
p. K., when he became suddenly indisposed, was assisted to a carriage, and
conveyed to his residence, where, in the bosom of his family, he departed
this life at about half-past 7 o'clock of the same day. Thus it may be said
of him, with almost literal accuracy, that, like the grass, he passed away.
" In the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it
flourisheth, and groweth up ; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth."

He was educated in this city to mercantile pursuits, and, by a diligent
attention to them for a number of years, acquired what he deemed a compe-
tent fortune, and was influenced to retire from business, not for the purpose
of self-indulgence, or to wear out a life then in its prime in indolence, under
the name of repose, but in order to devote his time, his talents, and his
laborious exertions to the cause of benevolence.

In this laudable occupation he had been almost entirely engaged for a
number of years, when, at the earnest solicitation of this board, he became
its presiding officer.

It is not our purpose to record the eulogy of his character as a citizen or
a philanthropist ; other institutions, and the community in which he lived,
and which he adorned, will not fail, in grateful remembrance of his services,
to perform this service. But the board unanimously and cheerfully bear tes-
timony that, in their intercourse with their late president, they have found
him, in personal disposition and bearing, amiable, courteous, obliging, and
gentlemanly ; as a " man of business," cleaT-headed, sagacious, and intelli-
gent, possessing habits of exact punctuality, accuracy, industry, and never-
tiring perseverance. Every piece of business in which he engaged seemed
to claim his undivided attention until it was acomplished ; and he never left
any business for to-morrow which could be done to-day ; and, above all, he
was a man of truth and integrity, and perfectly fearless in the discharge of
his duties.

At a meeting of the board in May, 1844, Mr. John R. Hurd
called attention to the fact that #n important location for a school
remained unoccupied, in the vicinity of Forty-second street and
the Sixth avenue. Messrs. Peter Cooper, John E. Hurd, and
William Dusenberry were appointed a committee to select a
location. Messrs. J. S. Howe, H. S. Benedict, and William
Dusenberry were named as a " section " to take charge of the
school when it should be opened. In May, 1845, the Committee

534 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

on Locations reported in favor of four lots in Forty-seventh
street, between the Eighth and Ninth avenues, which were
directed to be purchased, at the price of $1,900. The erection
of a building was referred to the Executive Committee. The
house was built, and known as No. 18.

At the annual meeting of the Society, January 12, 1846, the
office of president, which had been filled by George T. Trimble
pro tempore, was assigned to LINDLEY MURRAY, who discharged
the duties of presiding officer only two years.

In April, a communication was received from the Board of
Education, in which it was stated that certain teachers of the
Fourteenth "Ward schools were refused admission to the Normal
Schools of the Society, although they were entitled to the privi-
lege by the recent amendments to the school law. Messrs. A.
P. Halsey, John T. Adams, John R. Hurd, James N. Cobb,
Peter Cooper, and Joseph B. Collins, were appointed a commit-
tee to confer with the representatives of the Board of Education.
The following resolution was referred to the same* committee :

Whereas, By the act of the Legislature of New York passed the 18th
day of April, 1843, power is granted to the New York Public School Soci-
ety to establish Normal Schools ; and,

Whereas, By the act of said Legislature, passed the 7th day of May,
1844, said power is distinctly recognized, and said Normal Schools are in-
cluded among the number entitled to draw money from the public treasury
for their support, on condition of such schools affording instructions to all
such pupils as may be intended for teachers in any schools established under
the acts aforesaid ; therefore, .

Resolved, That it is expedient and proper for this board to proceed forth-
with to establish such Normal School or schools as may be suited to the pur-
poses named in said " act " of May 7, 1844, to be kept open five days in
each week, and to be placed under such supervision, and to be conducted
under such rules and regulations, as this board may from time to time
direct.

The Normal Schools were freely opened to the teachers of the
ward schools, and so continued until the adoption of the system
by the Board of Education, when they were much extended and
improved.

A controversy arose, in the month of February of this year,
between the Society and the Board of Education, as to the
power of the Society to erect new buildings and open new
schools, under the provisions of the amended law of 1844. The

POWERS OF THE SOCIETY. 535

question originated in the Board of Education, by a preamble
and resolution, offered on the llth of February, by Mr. Henry
Nicoll, commissioner of the First Ward, as follows :

Whereat, It is expedient for this board to have more particular informa-
tion in relation to several matters than ia contained in the report of the
Public School Society, made on the llth instant ; be it therefore

Resolved, That the trustees of the Public School Society be, and they are
hereby, requested to report to this board the number of new school-houses
erected by the said Society since the 7th day of May, 1844, as well as those
now in the course of erection, with all grounds purchased for school pur-
poses, with the character, location, and cost of the same ; and that they also
report to this board whether the title to any of the said school-houses or
grounds has been vested in the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the
city of New York.

Mr. Thomas Addis Emmet, one of the commissioners for the
Twelfth Ward, offered the following resolution, which was like-
wise adopted :

Resolved, That the Public School Society be also requested to furnish
this board with the date of organization and location of schools under their
care, established since the 31st of January, 1845.

On the 8th of April, the reply of the Society was transmit-
ted to the board by Joseph B. Collins, the secretary, which was
laid on the table for further consideration ; and, on June 10th,
the subject being renewed, it was referred to a special commit-
tee, consisting of Messrs. Robert F. Winslow, of the Eleventh
Ward, John M. Seaman, of the Seventeenth Ward, and John L.
Mason, of the Fifteenth Ward. On the 20th of January, 1847.
the committee submitted their report adverse to the right of the
Public School Society to " establish any new school " under the
amended law of May 7, 1844. The facts and reasonings of the
report came up subsequently on the adoption of the report, and
were presented by able counsel for both parties, whose argu-
ments are given below. The recommendations of the committee
were the following :

1. Resolved, That, in the opinion of the Board of Education, the Public
School Society has no right, since the passage of the act entitled " An Act
more Effectually to Provide for Common School Education in the City and
County of New York," passed May 7, 1844, to establish any new school ;
and that, if any such schools have been or may be established, they are not
entitled to participate in the apportionment of the school moneys.

536 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

2. ResoheJ, That the Public School Society be required to specify, in
their annual returns of scholars to be made to this board, for the apportion-
ment of the school moneys, the number of scholars who have attended and
are connected with any schools established by them since May 7, 1844.

3. Resolved, That the said trustees be required, in their annual reports of
moneys received and disbursed by them for the support of their schools, to
specify how much has been expended for the support of any schools estab-
lished by them since May 7, 1844, including in such expenses not only the
salaries of their teachers, but also the prices, if any, paid for the rent of
buildings or lots, or in the purchase of lots and erection of buildings, or in
the payment of interest on moneys expended for that purpose.

The report was laid on the table, and ordered to be printed ;
and, on the 10th of March, the president laid before the Board
of Education a communication from the president of the Public
School Society, asking an opportunity to be heard before the
board before any action should be had on the report of the Spe-
cial Committee. On the reading of this communication, Mr.
Nicoll offered a resolution ordering a special meeting of the
board on the following Wednesday, March 17, ior the purpose
of hearing the Public School Society by their committee. The
board accordingly met, and UIKAM KETCIIUM, Esq., on behalf of
the Society, made the following remarks :

MB. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OP THE BOARD OF EDUCATION : By a
report of a committee of your board, dated January 20, 1847, the following
resolution is recommended to your adoption :

Resolved, That, in the opinion of the Board of Education, the Public
School Society has no right, since the passage of the act entitled " An Act'
more Effectually to Provide for Common School Education in the City and
County of New York," passed May 7, 1844, to establish any new school ;
and that, if any such schools have been or may be established, they are not
entitled to a participation in the apportionment of the school moneys.

It is quite natural that the Public School Society should feel a deep
interest in the deliberations and final action of your board upon this resolu-
tion. The Society has, therefore, respectfully requested your board to allow
an expression of their views, which request has been kindly and promptly
granted ; and therefore, on behalf of the Society, I now appear to solicit
your attention for a few moments.

The Board of Education is entrusted with the school fund, for distribu-
tion in the mode pointed out by law. The Public School Society is entitled
to a portion of this fund, and the great practical question is, By what rule
shall the amount be ascertained which the Society is entitled to receive ?
Shall the Society draw from this fund according to the number of children
over four and under sixteen years of age, who shall have actually attended
the schools of the Society the preceding year without charge ? or shall it

SPEECH OF HIRAM KETCHTJM. 537

draw only for the children of the above description taught in such of those
schools as -were established on or before the 7th day of May, 1844 the date
of the act and were in existence at that time ? Confessedly there have
been schools opened and established by the Society since the passage of the
act, in which children have been gratuitously educated. Are these schools
entitled to a participation in the fund ?

The answer to these questions must be looked for in the law itself. That
law contains the declaration of trust under which the Board of Education
receives the money. The law provides the rule of duty as well for this
board as for the Public School Society.

To the law, then, let us look. The 12th section of the act of 1844 says :
" It shall be the duty of the Board of Education to apportion all the school
moneys, except so much as shall have been raised for the purpose of estab-
lishing and organizing new schools, to each of the several schools provided
for by this ^ct and the acts mentioned in the preceding section, according to
the number of children over four and under sixteen years of age, who shall
have actually attended such school without charge the preceding year."

Among the schools provided for by the act are those of the Public
School Society. The exception quoted, of so much money " as shall have
been raised for the establishing and organizing new schools," refers to the
money raised under the act for the special purpose of building school-
houses, which is a distinct fund from the school fund proper. The 12th sec-
tion further provides for any school that shall have been organized since the
last annual apportionment. The provision is for any school. Then comes
the exception : " But no school shall be entitled to the portion of the school
moneys in which the doctrine or tenets of any Christian sect shall be
taught," &c.

Now, the Legislature have prescribed who shall not receive from the
school fund ; and, according to every sound rule of construction, it is not
competent for any persons acting under the law to add to the negative ex-
ception. The general words of the law embrace all children taught in the
schools within the prescribed ages. The exception excludes children taught
in schools where sectarian doctrines are inculcated. None others can be ex-
eluded. Therefore, children educated in the schools opened since the pas-
sage of the act of May, 1844, cannot be excluded.

But how shall the Board of Education be informed of the number of
scholars taught in the schools of the Public School Society ? The 36th sec-
tion of the act provides for the transmission of this information. " The
trustees shall, on or before the 15th day of February in every year, make
and transmit a report in writing to the Board of Education." What infor-
mation shall it contain 2 The same section furnishes the answer.

1. The whole number of schools within the jurisdiction of the Society
specially designating the schools for colored children.

This certainly means, within the jurisdiction at the time of the report,
and not at the date of the passage of the act.

2. The length of time each school shall have been kept open.

3. The whole number of scholars over four and under sixteen years of

538 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

age, which shall have been taught free of expense to such scholars in their
schools during the year preceding the 1st day of February.

4. The average number that has actually attended their schools.

5. The amount of moneys received during the last year from the com-
missioners of school money, or from the chamberlain of the city, and
the purposes for and the manner in which the same shall have been ex-
pended.

6. A particular account of the state of the schools, and of the property
and affairs of each school under the care of the Society.

Now, it will be seen that the trustees of each ward, and the trustees of
the Public School Society, are alike bound to report the number of schools
within their jurisdiction, and the condition of the schools at the time of
making their reports.

Then, if. the schools of the Public School Society, opened and estab-
lished since the passage of the act of 1844, are within the jurisdiction of the
Society, it would seem to follow, conclusively, that these schools are entitled
to participate in the school moneys. If they are not within such jurisdic-
tion, it follows not only that they are not entitled to participate, but that
the trustees of the Society, in reporting the new schools and claiming a por-
tion of the school fund, have subjected themselves to a penalty under sec-
tion 37.

The next inquiry is, whether the schools established by the Public
School Society since the 7th of May, 1844, are within the jurisdiction of the
Society. If they are not, the Society has no legal title to them or control
over them. Those who deny this jurisdiction, deny it on the ground that
the Society has no right to establish such schools. Let us look at the ques-
tion of right.

What is now the Public School Society, was, originally, incorporated as
" The Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York, for
the education of such poor children as do not belong to, or are not provided
for by, any religious society." By the 2d section of this act, passed April
9, 1805, the trustees of the corporation were authorized to establish two or
more free schools in the city of New York, whenever the Society might
judge it expedient. Here, then, we have a purely benevolent Society organ-
ized and incorporated. Here is the Society, disconnected from any grant of
money, from the school fund, or any other public fund, operating actively
with the means supplied by its members and private contributions.

Thus existing, it had a right by law the law of its creation to build
as many school-houses and open as many schools as it pleased. Now, with
great respect, I inquire, When was this original corporate right ever taken
from the Society ? While I am on this original act, allow me to make an-
other suggestion. The Public School Society is called, in the report of the
committee, " a close corporation." The 6th section of the original act
enacts that the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, and Assistants of the city of
New York shall and may be ex-officio members of said corporation, and that
any person who shall subscribe and contribute to the benefit of the said
Society the sum of eight dollars, shall, by virtue of such contribution, be a

SPEECH OF HIRAM KETCHUM. 539

member of the said corporation. Is that a close corporation ? Show me
one more open.

By an " Act for the Encouragement of Free Schools in the City of New
York," passed July 27, 1807, there was granted by the Legislature to this
Society the sum of $4,000, for the purpose of erecting a certain building or
buildings for the instruction of poor children ; and every year thereafter,
until the pleasure of the Legislature should be otherwise expressed, an annu-
ity of 1,000 was granted to the Society, " for promoting the benevolent
objects of said corporation."

In 1808, th title of the corporation was changed to that of the " Free-
School Society of New York," and its powers were extended " to all chil-
dren the proper objects of a gratuitous education."

Farther grants to the Society, for the purpose of erecting suitable accom-
modations for the instruction of poor children, were afterward made by the
Legislature. So that the Legislature not only gave the power to build, but
the means to execute the power. One of the grants of means is contained
in the 3d section of the act of 5th April, 1817, which allows the Society to
appropriate any surplus school money, after the payment of teachers, &c.,
to the erection of buildings for schools. By the act of 28th April, 1826, the
title of the Society is again altered to that of " The Public School Society
of the City of New York," and the power is again conferred on the trustees
" from time to time to establish in said city such additional schools as they
may deem expedient."

From this recital, it will be seen that the power to build school-houses
and establish additional schools was always possessed by the Public School
Society, and is still possessed, unless the power is taken away, as contended,
by the act of 1844.

Here let it be remembered, that this right is a chartered right, originally
granted, and subsequently confirmed. For the means to purchase ground
and build school-houses, the Society is, and ever has been, dependent upon
private or public bounty. The exercise of the right to build assumes
the possession of the means to do so. Now, supposing the means are in
hand, cannot the Society employ those means in the erection of new school-
houses ?

It will be observed that I am not now upon the question whether or not
the Legislature has furnished the means to build that will be considered in
another place but whether this body has taken away the power to build ?
Has not the Society the same power in this respect that it had when the
original act was passed ?

It is admitted, in the report of the committee, that the section of the act
of 1826, authorizing the Society to establish such additional schools as it
might deem expedient, is now in full force, unless it is repealed by the 50th
section of the' act of 1844. This same admission might also be extended to
the 2d section of the original charter, which, as we have seen, gives the
trustees power to establish two or more free schools in the city of New
York. The " 50th section of the act of 1844 repeals the acts of 1842 and
1843," and all other acts specially applicable to public or common schools

54:0 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

in the city and county of New York, as far as the same are inconsistent with
the provisions of this act.

The argument is, that the power to establish new schools, in the Public
School Society, is inconsistent with the act of 1844, and is, therefore, re-
pealed. Admitting, for the present, that the Legislature could, in this man-
ner, without the notice required by the statute, divest a corporation of a
chartered right, the first question is, Did the Legislature regard the power
to establish new schools as inconsistent with the act of 1844 ?

The committee say it appears to them, " from an examination of the act
of 1844, in connection with the act of 1842, that the Legislature intended
to vest the power of establishing new schools exclusively in the school offi-
cers named in these acts."

" The first section of the act of 1842," say the committee, " provides for
the election of Commissioners, inspectors, and trustees of schools in the sev-
eral wards of the city, and declares that these officers respectively shall have
the like powers, and be subject to the same duties, with the commissioners
and inspectors of common schools, and the trustees of school districts in the
several towns of the State, except as thereinafter provided.

" Now, by reference to the powers and duties of commissioners, inspec-
tors, and trustee's of common schools in the several towns of the State, it
will be seen that the whole power of establishing common schools, and the
whole charge of them, is vested in these officers, and in them exclusively."

That is to say, the common school system of the State takes in all the
children, in every district. Therefore, when that system is extended to the
city of New York, as it was by the act of 1842, it is equally comprehensive
here it embraces all the children of the city. I mean to state the argument
correctly.

Now, I wonder that the learned committee did not see that their argu-
ment proved too much. For, if this argument be sound, the very existence
of the Public School Society, all its chartered rights, are inconsistent with
the new system, upon the reasoning employed. But did the Legislature so
regard it ? No ; for this very act of 1842 puts the schools of the Public
School Society " under the jurisdiction of the commissioners of the respec-
tive wards in which any of the said schools now are, or hereafter may be,
located, subject to the direction of the Board of Education, but under the
immediate government and management of their respective trustees, man-
agers, and directors, in the same manner and to the same extent as herein
provided in respect to the district schools herein first before mentioned, in
said city and county," &c. Here, then, the act of 1842 expressly provides
for schools of the Public School Society thereafter to be located. Such new
erections were not at that time regarded as inconsistent with the extension
of the common school system of the State to the city of New York.

The 7th section of this act provides for the organization of schools under
the new system, and provides that none such shall be organized unless it
can be certified Ci that it is necessary to organize one or more schools in said
ward, in addition to the schools mentioned in the 13th section ; " that is, in
addition to the schools of the Public School Society then or thereafter to be

SPEECH OF I1IEAM ZETCHUM. 541

located in the respective wards. The act, however, did not, in express
terms, provide any means for the erection of any new buildings by the Pub-
lic School Society. This omission was evidently undesigned ; for, in the
amendment of the act, in 1843, it is provided that " the trustees of the Pub-
lic School Society may appropriate all moneys received by them by virtue
of the act, to any of the purposes of common school instruction, including
the support of normal schools," which they were authorized by law to do
before the passage of this act ; provided always, that the fee of all real
estate purchased under the act " shall vest in the city and county of New
York."

Consequently, then, the new system introduced by the act of 1842 was
not deemed by the Legislature inconsistent with the establishment of new
schools by the Public School Society. Nor was it so deemed when the
amended act of 1843 was passed.

Did the Legislature of 1844 mean to say the establishment of new
schools by the Public School Society was inconsistent with the provisions
of the act passed by that body ? It is said this power was granted exclu-
sively to the school officers named in the act. By the 8th section of this
act, before the organization of any new ward school, it must appear that an
additional school is necessary ; that is, additional to the schools already
organized. If there are a sufficient number of public schools in the neigh-
borhood of the contemplated organization, then no additional school shall
be organized. The power, then, of the Public School Society to open new
schools, is not inconsistent with the power of the ward officers to organize
additional schools. If it were true, as a fact, that the new system must
necessarily occupy the whole ground of common school education, then, of
course, the power to build new school-houses must be exclusive ; but this is
not true as a fact ; the new system occupfes not the whole, but additional
ground. Now, the question comes, Additional to what ? I answer, Addi-
tional to the schools, among others, of the Public School Society a corpo-
ration having schools, and possessing a chartered right to establish new
schools.

But the committee describe the mode pointed out by the 8th section of
the act of 1844 for the organization of a new school, and say : " In order,
then, to establish a new school, a majority of the school officers of the ward
must, in the first instance, determine that it is needed ; and then they must
apply to the Board of Education, stating the reasons of their application ;
and the Board of Education must investigate the matter, and grant or deny
the application, as they may deem best."

" Surely," say the committee, " such careful provisions in regard to the
establishment of new schools is entirely inconsistent with the idea that the
same power is concurrently given to a close corporation, with no responsi-
bility as to the manner of its exercise."

Why are these careful provisions prescribed in the act ? Because the
money is to be raised by a special tax, imposed upon all the property of the
city, for the express purpose of buying the land and erecting the school-
house. This tax is imposed, in effect, by the very men who make the scru-

542 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tiny. The formalities, therefore, are required to determine the question, Is
the high and extremely delicate function of government, the imposition of
a tax, to be exercised ? But if the Public School Society have the, money,
derived from private or public bounty, what objection can the Legislature
have to its appropriation in the organization of a new school ? especially as
such organization may prevent the necessity of laying a tax to erect an
additional school. Such appropriation is not, certainly, inconsistent with
the power vested by law in the ward officers to organize additional schools.

That the intention was to provide for the establishment of additional
schools only, is obvious enough from the reading of the statute ; but, beyond
this, the contemporaneous history of the school controversy exemplifies the
same truth. The schools of the Public School Society were always the
favorites of the commissioners of school money, of the Corporation of the
city, of the Legislature of the State, and of the public at large.

There were never any complaints made against this Society for infidelity
in the expenditure of the many thousands of dollars entrusted to it. There
were never any allegations that it did not furnish a good and an economical
education to the many thousand children instructed in its school?. Every
investigation made and there were many showed that the management,
order, and discipline of the public schools in the city were far preferable to
those of country schools. The Legislature never meant to say or do any
thing indicating an unfriendly feeling to the Public School Society. There
were no facts to authorize such feelings ; but it did come out, in the investi-
gations made by the Legislature, that there were many children in the city
of New York who, from prejudice or some other cause, did not receive the
advantages which the Society proffered. The new system was therefore
enacted, not to destroy the old schools or retard the operations of the Soci-
ety, but to provide additional schools, which should take up the scholars
whom the Society could not or did not reach.

Thus the two systems were intended and wisely so to operate side by
side, under the supervision of this board.

And now let us ask, Does not experience show that the two systems mu-
tually stimulate each other, to the great advantage of the pupils instructed
in the schools ? I am informed that the public schools were never better
attended, and were never more useful ; and it will, I am sure, be admitted,
that the ward schools have been greatly aided by the example of the public
schools.

It is thus apparent that the Legislature did not intend to repeal the clear
chartered right of the Society to multiply the number of its schools.

Having shown that the Legislature never regarded the right of the Pub-
lic School Society to open new schools as inconsistent with the provisions
of the act of May, 1844, and therefore that there never was an intention to
repeal the portions of the charter conferring this right, the next question is,
Could the Legislature, if it had been so disposed, repeal the charter ?

The report of the committee, in discussing this point, refers to the case
of McLaren . Pennington, 1 Paige's Reports, 107.

The following is a pait of the marginal note in this case :

SPEECH OF HIRAM KETCHTJM. 543

The privileges and franchises granted to a private corporation are vested
rights, and cannot be divested or altered, except with the consent of the
corporation, or by a forfeiture declared by a proper tribunal.

A State cannot pass any law which alters or amends the charter of a pri-
vate corporation, without the consent of such corporation.

" Yet," the committee say, " it is a principle equally well settled, that
public corporations, or those whose powers are a public trust, to be executed
for the common weal, are entirely within the control of the Legislature ;
that these powers are not vested rights as against the State, but that they
may be abrogated as well by a general law affecting the whole State, as by
a special act altering the powers of the corporation." In support of this
principle, reference is made to the case of The People vs. Morris, 13 Wend.,
325, 331.

This was a case of alleged interference with rights granted in the char-
ter to the village of Ogdensburgh, St. Lawrence county. The defendant
was indicted for selling spirituous liquors and permitting the same to be
drunk in his grocery store, without having obtained a license as a tavern-
keeper. He admitted the sale of liquor, &c., but justified, under a license
from the trustees of the village, to " keep a grocery and victualling house
in the village, in which to sell fruit, victuals, and liquor." The act of in-
corporation of the village authorized the trustees " to regulate and license
grocers and keepers of victualling-houses and ordinaries, where fruit,
victuals, and liquor shall be sold to be eaten or drunk in such houses or gro-
ceries." Under this authority, a license was granted to defendant, and paid
for by him.

The Supreme Court did not sustain the justification of the defendant
under the village license, and they put themselves upon the ground that
political power, conferred by the Legislature, could not become a vested
right as against the Government, in any individual or body of men.

Then the question is, Is the right to educate children, granted by the act
of 1805 and confirmed by the act of 1826, political power, within the sense
of this decision ? If it be, it would seem to follow that the powers of our
colleges and universities, granted by charter, which are powers to educate,
are political powers, and not the subjects of private right. Yet we see that
a very different doctrine was held by the Supreme Court of the United
States, in the great case of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward, 4 Wheaton,
518. In that case, there was a charter granted by the British crown to the
trustees of Dartmouth College. An act of the Legislature of New Hamp-
shire was passed, altering the charter in a material respect, without the con-
sent of the corporation. This act was declared to be unconstitutional and
void. This case, I contend, is analogous to the one now under considera-
tion. The powers granted to the Public School Society are not political
powers.

I have considered this point because I have been called to it i>y the posi-
tion taken by the committee, and have thus been led to the discussion of the
legal rights of the Society ; not that I suppose the time will ever come when
there will be a disposition to exercise these rights in opposition to the will

544 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

of the Legislature. The Society would probably shrink from a conflict with
the Legislature.

It is thus manifest that the Public School Society has a chartered right
to build school-houses and open schools ; that it was never the intention of
the Legislature to take away or interfere with that right ; and that it had
no right to take away such chartered right without the consent of the Soci-
ety which consent has never been given.

Then the proposition of the committee, that the Public School Society,
since the act of May 7, 1844, has no right to establish any new school, is
untrue. As an abstract proposition, it is confessedly untrue.

The next proposition of the committee is, that, if any such schools have
been or may be established, that they are not entitled to participate in the
apportionment of the school moneys.

This, too, is untrue ; for the Society has a legal right, as has been shown,
to draw for all scholars, between the ages of four and sixteen years, edu-
cated free of expense in the schools within its jurisdiction. The schools
opened since May 7, 1844, are confessedly within the jurisdiction of the
Society, so that there is no longer room for argument.

But the great practical question, after all, is, Whence can the Society
obtain the means of opening new schools ?

1st. It can borrow money and mortgage its property for the payment
thereof, under the act of 1829. Of this there can be no doubt in the mind
of any man who will look at that act. The money so legally borrowed is
the property of the Society ; and, having means, it can establish new
schools.

2d. The Society can participate in the apportionment of the school
moneys, in the same manner and to the same extent as the ward schools.
The manner is pointed out in section 6 of the act of 1844. The extent is
defined in section 12 :

It shall be the duty of the Board of Education to apportion all the
school moneys, except so much as shall have been raised for the purpose of
organizing and establishing new schools, to each of the several schools pro-
vided for by this act, according to the number of children, over four and
under sixteen years of age, who shall have actually attended such school
without charge the preceding year.

The Society's school? and the ward schools alike draw from the fund,
according to the number of children taught ; they participate par capita,.
There is, then, no doubt as to the rule by which the money shall be received.
For what purposes can it be used ? Section 12 provides that, if the money
apportioned agreeably to that section shall exceed the necessary and legal
expenses of either of the schools or societies provided for in the act, the
balance shall be paid into the city treasury.

Then the Public School Society can use the money it receives to pay its
necessary and legal expenses. What are these t The necessary expenses of
a school for supplying gratuitous education to all children whom it can
accommodate and instruct, are easily indicated. There must be one or moro
teachers ; there must be fuel, school furniture, stationery, and a house. All

SPEECH OF HIRAM KETCHUM. 545

these must be paid for, and the expenses therefor are necessary expenses.
They are legal expenses, too, if the objects named are within the scope of
the purposes for which the fund was originally created by law. Now, what
are these purposes ? Section 5 of the act of 1844 defines them ; they are,
purposes of common schools in the city of New York. This section pro-
vides that there shall be raised by tax a sum equal to that received from the
school fund, and also one twentieth of one per cent, on all assessable prop-
erty in the city of New York, and to be applied exclusively to the purposes
of common schools in said city. Then, if salaries of teachers, fuel, school
furniture, stationery, and a house objects all of which are necessary to the
existence and operations of common schopls are comprehended in the pur-
poses of common schools, the expenses necessary to procure them are both
necessary and legal expenses, under section 12 already referred to.

What objects were included in the purposes of common schools in the
city of New York, before the passage of the act of May, 1844 ?

I first notice the act entitled " An Act Relating to Common Schools in
the City of New York," passed November 19, 1824. The provisions of this
act require that an equal amount received from the school fund shall be
raised by tax ; and the aggregate amount shall be deposited in. a bank, to
the credit of commissioners of the school fund. The act farther provides,
that the institutions or schools entitled to receive said school moneys shall,
once in three years, be designated by the Corporation of the city of New
York, who shall have power to prescribe the limitations and restrictions
under which said moneys shall be received by said institutions or schools, or
any of them.

Under this law, the Corporation of the city of New York, by ordinance,
designated the institutions and schools which should participate in the
fund ; and they provided that every other institution and school, besides the
Public School Society, should receive only a sufficient amount to pay teach-
ers employed, but that this Society was authorized to apply any surplus,
after paying the salaries of teachers, to the erection of buildings for schools,
and to all the useful purposes of a common school education. By the judg-
ment, then, of the Corporation, the school fund, without any special desig-
nation thereto by the Legislature, could be appropriated to the erection of
buildings, and all the needful purposes of education in common schools.
By an act passed April 25, 1829, the Corporation of the city of New York i*
authorized annually to raise and collect by tax a sum equal to one eightieth
of one per cent, of the value of the real and personal property in the city
liable to assessment, to be applied exclusively to the purposes of common
schools in the said city.

By another act, passed April 13, 1831, the Corporation is authorized to
lay an additional amount, to be applied exclusively to the purposes of com-
mon schools in said city.

Thus the Legislature authorized the funds to be raised, defining the
object to be, generally, for the purposes of common schools, but not specify-
ing what particular objects were comprehended within those purposes. The
Corporation could prescribe the limitations and restrictions under which
35

546 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

each society or school should receive the fund, but it could not enlarge the
purposes for which the fund -was created. With this power only, the Cor-
poration settled, by ordinance, that building school-houses, purchasing sta-
tionery, &c., were purposes of common schools, as well as the payment of
teachers. Under this practical construction of the law, before the act of
1842, the school moneys for this city were distributed, for nearly twenty
years, without objection or complaint, either from the Superintendent of
Common Schools or the Legislature, who were annually informed of tho
mode of distribution.

The same language, to designate the object of the fund, is employed in
section 5 of the act of 1844, as was previously employed in the acts of 1829
and 1831. Does it not, then, follow, that this fund can be now used for like
purposes that the fund, similarly created and described, had been used
with manifest approbation ?

If there were no other enactment in the act of 1844 for raising money by
tax, then, beyond all controversy, this question must be answered in the
affirmative. The words, " the purposes of common schools," in the 5th sec-
tion, would embrace all the purposes of common schools ; and " the neces-
sary and legal expenses " of the Public School Society would be those ex-
penses to which it was subjected in accomplishing any or all of these pur-
poses.

But it is said the act of 1844, besides the fund composed of the school
moneys, and the equivalent tax raised in the city, and the farther tax of one
eightieth of one per cent,, to be applied exclusively to the purposes of com-
mon schools, provides a mode, in the same section 5, for raising and collect-
ing an additional sum for erecting, purchasing, or leasing school-houses, and
procuring sites therefor, and the fitting up thereof. Now, because the
objects last specified are specially provided for in the act, it is said they
cannot be embraced in the provisions for creating the other fund, although
the terms of those provisions are sufficiently comprehensive to embrace the
same objects. With great respect, I deny this conclusion ; it is unsound and
illogical. The additional provision for raising money for some of the pur-
poses of common schools, shows that, in the judgment of the Legislature,
more funds were required for these purposes ; but it by no means proves
that the same purposes were not comprehended under the general expres-
sion, " purposes of common schools." The new system required new houses,
and it demanded more aid for this purpose than could be supplied by the
fund as formerly constituted. To supply houses, therefore, for this new sys-
tem, required an additional source of revenue ; but the opening of that
source did not change the character of the old fountain of supply ; that
remains as before.

Under the act of 1844, then, the Board of Education receives the school
money ; it apportions it among the schools and societies mentioned in the
act, to be by them applied to the purposes' of common schools in the city
of New York. The purposes of common schools have been defined by
established usage. What these purposes are. is settled by approved custom.
Among others, they are, the payment of teachers' salaries, the purchase of

6PEECH OF HIKAM KETCHUM. 547

stationery, fuel, and school furniture, the hiring of rooms, and the erection
of buildings for schools.

Although the erection of buildings for schools is clearly one of the pur-
poses of common schools, yet, in the apportionment of school money for a
single year, as this board is bound to apportion, it might, perhaps, admit of
a doubt whether a purpose so permanent, looking forward to many years in
the future, could properly be provided for in such annual apportionment. 1
say, it might admit of a doubt, unless the board can find evidence, in the
act itself, that such erections were contemplated by the Legislature. Is
there such evidence in the act of 1844 ? The last sentence in the llth sec-
tion of this act is in these words :

Titles to all school property, real and personal, hereafter purchased from
all moneys derived from the distribution of the school fund, or raised by
taxation in the city of New York, shall be vested in the Mayor, Aldermen,
and Commonalty of said city.

This sentence contemplates that real estate might be purchased with
money derived from the distribution of the school fund. How could there
be any such money, unless there happened to be a surplus after the payment
of teachers, &c. ? This surplus had generally been found in the schools of
the Public School Society. If the surplus could not be used in the erection
of school-houses, it would have to go back to the city treasury. If as
seems to be contemplated in the sentence quoted it could be used for the
purchase of real estate, the title to that estate was made to vest in the Cor-
poration. To me it seems that the words quoted are entirely insensible,
unless they recognize the fact that, as in all former times since 1817 had
been the practice, the Public School Society should have the right to vest
the surplus in real estate. It will be remembered that section 11 makes pro-
vision for the schools of the Public School Society, and other corporate
schools, and it was not necessary to use the sentence quoted, in order to
vest the title to the real estate purchased for ward schools in the Corpora-
tion ; that had been done before, at the end of section 9. Connect these
considerations with the fact that, in the amendatory act of 1843, the power
to use the school fund for the purchase of real estate was clearly given to
the Public School Society, and the title to such estate was made to vest in
the Corporation, and it seems to me the intention of the Legislature cannot
be doubted.

Yet still I confess that intention has not been as clearly expressed as I
could desire ; and if this board entertain a serious doubt as to its right to
allow the Public School Society to use the school moneys for the erection
of school-houses, although the title should be vested in the Corporation,
then I would respectfully suggest that it unite with the Public School Soci-
ety in an application to the Legislature, now in session, to pass a short
declaratory act, making that clear which now seems obscure.

In such an act I am willing that there should be inserted a provision that
the Public School Society should not erect a new building, unless the loca-
tion were approved by this board.

It will be readily seen that, under the increased expenses of the Society,

548 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

growing out of the new order of things, there will probably be very little
surplus moneys remaining in its hands ; yet I respectfully suggest that the
same right to use that surplus, heretofore enjoyed, should be still retained.
With these remarks, the whole subject is respectfully submitted.

At the conclusion of Mr. Ketclram's speech, Mr. Mason
offered a resolution, being an amended form of the first recom-
mendation of the committee, as follows :

fiesolced, That, in the opinion of the Board of Education, the Public
School Society has no right, since the passage of the act entitled " An Act
more Effectually to Provide for Common School Education in the City and
County of New York," passed May 7, 1844, to establish, any new schools
entitled to participate in the apportionment of the school moneys.

Mr. Mason sustained his resolution in a reply to Mr. Ketch-
urn, as follows :

MR. PRESIDENT : Before proceeding to the discussion of the resolution
which has just been read, I beg leave to submit one or two preliminary
remarks.

In the first place, I am happy that this discussion has taken place, and
that this board so promptly acceded to the request of the Public School
Society, to allow them to be heard on the subject of this resolution by their
committee. Such a course was due to that Society, composed as it is of so
many of our most respectable citizens, and exercising so important an influ-
ence upon the public education of the city. It was due also to this board,
that, before deciding on a step so important as that involved in the resolu-
tion, it should patiently hear and examine both sides of the question.

In the next place, the impression has been made in some quarters that
the resolution and the report of the committee on which it is founded, pro-
ceeds from a feeling of hostility on the part of the board toward the Public
School Society, and that a desire exists to injure and weaken the Society.
For myself, I utterly disclaim any such feeling. The Public School Society
is, in my judgment, entitled to the wannest gratitude of this community.
For a number of years the common school education of the city was, for the
most part, committed to this Society ; and it has, with great ability and
fidelity, discharged the high trust confided to it ; and I would resist to the
utmost of my power any attempt to interfere in the least degree with any
of the powers conferred upon it with regard to those schools which existed
at the time of the passage of the act of 1844 ; and these I believe to be the
sentiments of the board.

But the question is a naked question of law, involving the interpretation
of the statute under which we are constituted, and one which it is abso-
lutely necessary for us to settle, in order properly to fulfil the duties we have
to perform.

I have listened, this evening, to the able argument of the learned advo-

SPEECH OF ME. MASON. 549

cate of the Public School Society iu opposition to the resolution and report
of the co/nmittee now under consideration, but he has failed to convince me
that the position taken by the committee is erroneous. On the contrary, I
have no doubt that the construction given by the committee to the act of
May 7, 1844, is the true one.

Let us clearly understand the question involved ; for, with great respect,
I think the learned gentleman has somewhat obscured it.

The question before us, then, is, not whether the Public School Society
has or has not faithfully discharged the trust confided to it. I should have
no hesitation in answering this question in the affirmative. Nor is it
whether, by the law of 1844, the schools of the Society arc merged in the
ward schools ; such a position has never been advanced, much less contend-
ed for.* Nor is it whether the Society have or have not a corporate right to
establish free schools, to be supported by the private contributions of the
members of the Society. But the question is, whether the Society has a-
right to establish new common schools, which will be entitled, under the
act of 1844, to participate in the school moneys, and a right to use their sur-
plus funds, derived from the school moneys, in building or renting school-
houses for such new schools.

This was the question discussed in the report of the committee. The
term " schools " was indeed used in that report without any other designa-
tion or qualification, because it was only with common schools that this
board has any thing to do.

In order the more clearly to understand the subject, I will briefly advert
to the course of legislation in relation to common schools.

The Legislature, many years since, established the common school sys-
tem, extending to every part of the State, except the city and county of
New York.

By the provisions of that system, as is well known, different officers are
elected in the various towns of the State, each having their distinct and
appropriate duties : commissioners, to receive the school moneys appor-
tioned from the revenue of the common school fund, and to distribute them,
with a like amount raised by tax, among the school districts ; inspectors, to
examine into the qualifications of persons proposed as teachers ; and trus-
tees of districts, to take charge of the school-houses, pay the teachers, &c.

These officers, it is also well known, have exclusive jurisdiction in these
matters. They alone have power to establish common schools in their
respective towns, and no other schools but common schools thus established,
and managed by the school officers of the town and district in which they
are situated, have a right to participate in the school moneys.

* Allusion is here made to some of Mr. Ketchum's remarks which do not appear
in the printed report published by the Society. These remarks, as they appear in
print, are somewhat modified from their original shape. The reply now presented
immediately followed the remarks, and were founded on a few notes, many of which
were taken while Mr. Ketchum was speaking, and have since been reduced to writing
at the request of the Board of Education.

550 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

This common school system, 1 have said, did not originally, nor until a
very late period, extend to this city.

The various religious societies in the city had, for the most part, schools
belonging to their respective denominations; and, in the year 1805, thu
Free-School Society, now the Public School Society, was established for the
instruction of poor children who did not belong to, or were not provided
for by, any religious society. The schools which it formed, according to tho
original plan of the Society, were to be supported by private contributions,
and it was, in every respect, a private eleemosynary institution.

In the year 1826, however, the character of this Society was essentially
changed. The first section of the act of January 28, 1826, entitled " An
Act in Relation to the Public School Society of New York," altered its
name to that of " The Public School Society of New York ; " and the sec-
ond section made it the duty of said Society to provide, so far as their
means might extend, for the education of all children in the city of New
York not otherwise provided for, whether such children were or were not
the proper subjects of gratuitous education, and without regard to the
religious sect or denomination to which such children or their parents might
belong.

Thus an important public trust was committed to the Society ; the com-
mon school education of the city was placed under its control ; the duties
and powers of commissioners, trustees, and inspectors in the county, were
vested in its officers ; they became the executive officers of the Government
for this important branch of public service ; new and distinct powers were
grafted upon their original charter; and, by a subsequent section of the
same act, their right to draw upon the school fund was expressly recognized.

But, in the year 1842, the Legislature saw fit to extend the common
school system, which prevailed throughout the State, to the city of New
York, with some modifications.

The act of 1842 provided for the appointment of commissioners, inspec-
tors, and trustees, with the like powers and duties with the commissioners
and inspectors of common schools, and the trustees of school districts in the
several towns of the State, " except as thereinafter provided."

Now, if the powers and duties of those officers in the several towns in
the State were to be exercised by them, and by them alone, and were exclu-
sive in their very nature, they must be equally so in the city, excepting in so
far as they are modified by the act itself; and this position by no means
proves, as the learned gentleman insisted, that the schools of the Public
School Society are merged in the ward schools, and all the powers of the
Society destroyed, if, as we know to be the case, the exception provides for
its schools.

The 13th section of the act of 1842 expressly recognizes the schools of
the Public School Society then in existence, protects them in the enjoyment
of all their rights, and secures to them, in a manner that never was done
before, their full share of the school moneys.

But, as to all matters not embraced within the exception, the powers and
duties of the commissioners, inspectors, and trustees, are and must be exclu-

SPEECH OF ME. MASON. 551

sive, or the act has no meaning. If this is not so, but the Public School
Society could go on establishing new schools as before, it is incumbent upon
it to show that power to do so is reserved to it in the act.

The learned advocate of the Society has invoked the 7th section of the
act of 1842 to his aid. It provides that, " whenever the trustees elected in
any ward shall certify in writing, to the commissioners and inspectors of
common schools thereof, that it is necessary to organize one or more schools
in said ward, in addition to the schools mentioned in the 13th section of
this act (in which section the schools of the Society are expressly named), it
shall be the duty of the said commissioners and inspectors to meet together
and examine into the facts and circumstances of the case ; and, if they shall
be satisfied of such necessity, they shall certify the same, under their hands,
to the Board of Education, and then shall proceed to organize one or more
school districts therein, and shall procure a school-house," &c. The provis-
ion of the act of 1844 is the same in substance, although more general in its
terms. The 8th section provides that, whenever the commissioners, &c.,
shall certify to the Board of Education that it is necessary to organize one
or more additional schools in said ward, &c. It is obvious that the same
construction must be given to these words "in addition," in the act of 1844,
as was given to the words of like import in the 7th section of the act of
1842, just referred to.

It is strange that this section should have been adverted to by the
learned gentleman. If it means any thing, it means that the power of erect-
ing schools in addition to those then established, is vested in the ward
officers. There are, say the Legislature, certain schools established by the
Public School Society ; with these schools we do not wish to interfere, but
whenever schools are needed in any ward, in addition to those already estab-
lished, you, the commissioners, inspectors, &c., must judge of that, and
establish them, if found necessary.

To insist, as was done in the argument of the counsel, that these words,
" in addition," mean in addition to the schools thereafter to be established
by the Society, is begging the question.

The 13th section of the act of 1842 was next referred to, which puts the
schools of the Public School Scoiety under " the general jurisdiction of the
commissioners of the respective wards in which any of the said schools now
are or may hereafter be located ; " and it was insisted that the act provides
for schools thereafter to be located or established. So far from it, the act
merely defines under whose jurisdiction the existing schools of the Society
shall be, in case of a division, or alteration of the bounds, of any of the
wards ; that they shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the officers in whose
bounds they then were, or, upon a division of the wards, they might hap-
pen to be.

The question then arises, Had the Legislature the right to take away
this power from the Public School Society of establishing new common
schools ?

It is contended that they had not, because it was a chartered right.

The learned counsel has spent much time in endeavoring to show that

552 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the Society has a chartered right to establish free schools, to be supported
by private munificence, and that this right ia not taken away. I might
safely concede this position, and the argument would not be advanced a
step ; any more than it would be if he had proved what no one denies
that any individual has a right to educate as many children as he pleases,
free of expense. But that would not prove that such an individual has a
right to use the public moneys to aid him ; nor that, if the law has once
given him some aid, he has a vested right in it for all time to come.

The distinction is between the corporate right to establish free schools at
the Society's expense, and the right and duty of establishing common
schools to be supported at the public expense.

The one we do not interfere with ; the other is, and always, from the
nature of the case, must be, subject to legislative control.

The established doctrine on this subject is well expressed in the case of
the People vs. Morris, 13th Wend., 323, 341, in which the court say that
" public corporations, or those whose powers are a public trust, to be exe-
cuted for the common weal, are entirely within the control of the Legisla-
ture ; that these powers are not vested rights as against the State, but that
they may be abrogated as well by a general law affecting the whole State, as
!>y a special act altering the powers of the corporation."

The learned gentleman has been at some pains, in examining the particu-
lar facts of that case, to show that the power exercised by the defendant in
that case, of selling spirituous liquors, was a political power ; and he con-
tended that the right to educate children is not a political power. I would
ask, What is a political power ? What is the meaning of political ? It is
defined to be something which relates to public affairs affairs in which the
whole public are interested. And are we to be gravely told that the regu-
lation and licensing of grocers and victualling-houses in a village (which
was the power referred to in the case quoted from Wendell) is a political
power, in which the whole public are interested, and which the Government
can regulate as they please ; but that the education of all the children of
our city is a matter of private concern, with which the public have nothing
to do -which the Legislature cannot regulate or control ; and that, having
once delegated certain duties relative to it to a private corporation, they
have placed the matter forever out of their reach ?

The case of Dartmouth College TS. Woodward, 5 Wheaton, 518, cited by
the counsel, does not in the least conflict with that of The People vs. Morris.
The decision in that case was put expressly on the ground that the college
was a private eleemosynary, and not a public corporation, and so the gentle-
man himself read from the case, and felt bound to insist that the Public
School Society was a private, and not a public, corporation. If so, let it
confine itself to those private rights originally granted to it, and not claim
to exercise the powers conferred upon it as the agent of the Government,
and there is then no question on which we are at issue. But let it not insist
upon a perpetual grant of public and political powers and duties, because
its charter gives it certain private rights.

There is, then, no constitutional objection to the establishment of the

SPEECH OF ME. MASON. 553

new system. It is no violation of the chartered rights of the Society. It is
only a withdrawal of a public trust confided to it, and vesting it in other
hands.

But again. The exercise by the Public School Society of the right to
establish new schools, is entirely inconsistent with the exercise of the same
right by this board. It would be in the power of the Society to prevent
this board from ever establishing any new schools.

Our proceedings are public, and necessarily slow. The ward officers
must first determine that a school is necessary; they must then apply to this
board, which meets ordinarily but once a month ; the matter is referred to a
committee, who may report at the expiration of one month, perhaps two.
The site for a building must then be purchased, and appropriations made,
which generally take another month. In the meanwhile, before the ward
officers have fairly commenced operations, the Public School Society, whose
deliberations are more secret, may have purchased ground and erected a
building in the very neighborhood of the one proposed to be established by
this board, and render the establishment of a school by the ward officers
entirely unnecessary and inexpedient. I do not mean to say that the Soci-
ety would take such a course. I do not believe they would. I merely state
the case by way of illustration, to show what could be done, and thus test
the accuracy of the position taken by us on this subject. It cannot be that
the Legislature meant that this power should be exercised simultaneously by
both bodies.

The soundness of the position taken by the committee will further
appear by the course of legislation with regard to the school moneys.

The words " school moneys " are used throughout the act of May, 1844.
The term is a technical one, and is defined, in 1 R. S., 196, 1st ed. 2, to
mean the revenues of the common school fund which are annually distrib-
uted for the support and encouragement of common schools.

These moneys are paid into the hands of the commissioners for schools
in the several towns of the State, and, together with the moneys raised by
tax in the tcywns, are apportioned by the commissioners among the several
school districts, and paid to the trustees (1 R. S., 470, 1st ed. 5-6), who
are required to appropriate them to the payment of teachers' wages (ib. 481,
8-9) ; and the moneys received from both these sources are designated
by the general term of " school moneys."

The sums necessary for purchasing the sites for school-houses, for build-
ing, hiring, or purchasing school-houses, keeping them in repair, furnishing
them with necessary fuel and appendages, are provided for by additional
tax imposed upon the inhabitants at a school-district meeting (ib. 478, 61,
sub. 5).

By an act passed April 17, 1838 (Laws, 1838, p. 220), the sum of one
hundred and ten thousand dollars of the income of the United States de-
posit fund is directed to be annually distributed to the support of common
schools, in like manner and upon the like conditions as the school moneys
are or may be distributed.

There are also various other acts to be found in the statute-book, show-

554 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ing how sacredly the school moneys are appropriated to the teachers' wages ;
as, for instance, a law passed in 1837 (Laws, 1837, p, 232), authorizing the
inhabitants of school districts to levy a tax for the purchase of a book to
record the proceedings of the trustees; and another law, in 1841 (Laws,
1841, p. 236), authorizing a special tax, not exceeding $20 in any one year,
to purchase maps, globes, black-boards, and other school apparatus all
showing that the " school moneys," so called, could not be used in these
ways, but that they are sacredly appropriated to the support of teachers.

The Public School Society would have had no right at any time to appro-
priate the, school moneys received by it to any other purpose, but for the
permission given in the act of April 5, 1817, referred to by the counsel.

The act of May 7, 1844, makes the same distinction between " school
moneys," properly so called, and the sums necessary for establishing and
organizing new schools.

The 5th section provides that the supervisors shall annually raise, by tax,
a sum of money equal to the city's share of the school moneys received from
the general fund, and also one twentieth of one per cent, of the real and
personal estate in the city, to be applied exclusively to the purposes of com-
mon schools in said city.

That these purposes are not erecting, or leasing, or purchasing sites for
school-houses, or school-houses themselves, is manifest from what follows in
the same section, which provides that the Corporation shall raise by tax
such further sum as may be necessary for these last-mentioned objects, and
also for fitting up of the school-houses.

The sums first designated in section 5 are, by the 6th section, directed to
be deposited to the credit of the commissioners of common schools in the
several wards, and of the societies and schools enumerated in the llth sec-
tion (including the Public School Society), in the proportion to which they
shall respectively be entitled.

By the 7th section, the balance of the funds to be raised, pursuant to
section 5, for the erection, purchase, or leasing of school-houses, and procur-
ing the sites therefor, and fitting up thereof, are placed at the disposal of
the Board of Education, by appropriation, for the establishment and organi-
zation of schools, as provided in the 8th section.

The 8th section provides for the establishment of new schools by the
Board of Education, and by none other ; and these schools are denominated
by the 3d section, " ward schools."

Here, then, are two distinct funds, both placed under the control of the
Board of Education : the first consisting of the funds annually raised for
the support of common schools, and denominated " school moneys "
throughout the act. In these moneys the Public School Society partici-
pates according to the number of its scholars, in common with the ward
schools, and the other schools and societies mentioned in the act.

The second fund is a special one, to be raised from time to time, for
establishing and organizing new ward schools, and them alone.

Now, if we turn to the llth section, we shall find that the schools of the
Public School Society, with the other schools mentioned in the section,

SPEECH OF ME. MASON. 555

" participate in the apportionment of the ' school moneys ' in the same man-
ner and to the same extent " as are provided with regard to the ward
schools.

The next section (12th) shows in what manner and to what extent the
ward schools, and, of course the schools of the Public School Society, are
entitled to participate in the school moneys which may be apportioned to
them.

If, by reason of peculiar circumstances, any of the newly-organized
schools are entitled to a larger sum than they will receive under the appor-
tionment, then the Board of Education are required to make for them such
further allowance out of the said school moneys as may be just and proper.
But " if the school moneys apportioned agreeably to this section shall ex-
ceed the necessary and legal expenses of either of the schools or societies
provided for in this act, the board shall authorize the payment only of such
necessary and legal expenses ; any balance remaining in deposit at the end
of each year shall be paid by the Board of Education into the city treasury,
and any deficiency to meet the necessary and legal expenses of either of the
said schools or societies shall be supplied by the Common Council, in antici-
pation of the annual tax for the support of common schools, as provided by
section 5 of this act."

Now, what are these "necessary and legal expenses" to which the school
moneys are to be applied ?

The words must have the same meaning in their application to the Pub-
lic School Society and the ward schools, because the Society participates in
these moneys only in the same manner and to the same extent as the ward
schools.

The learned gentleman contends that the Public School Society has the
right, under the term " necessary and legal expenses," to build new school-
houses whenever it shall deem proper. If this is so, and if the building of
new school-houses is a necessary and legal expense, within the meaning of
the act, then, if the cost of erection of a new school-house should exceed
the sum apportioned to the Society, the Board of Education would be
bound to certify the fact to the Common Council, and the Common Council
would be bound to provide for the deficiency by tax, and the way is clear
for the Society to extend their schools when and where they please.

By parity of reasoning, the officers of the ward schools have a right to
establish new schools of their own motion, without the interference of the
Board of Education, because the ward schools and the Public School Soci-
ety stand on the same footing precisely with regard to these school moneys.
If the building of new school-houses is, upon a just construction of the act,
one of the " necessary and legal expenses " of the Public School Society, it
must be also one of the necessary and legal expenses of the ward schools ;
and we are thus driven to a conclusion entirely at variance with the whole
scope and tenor of the act, and with many of its positive provisions.

No person who reads the act can doubt for a moment what are the
" necessary and legal expenses " of the ward schools, to which the school
moneys may be applied. They are, upon the most liberal construction, the

556 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

annual expenses required to keep up the school payment of teachers, fuel,
ordinary repairs, stationery, &c. ; and they cannot be applied to building or
hiring school-houses for new schools, because the power of establishing new
schools, and raising the requisite funds for that purpose, is placed in the
Board of Education.

If, then, the ward schools have no power to expend the school moneys
annually apportioned to them in the establishment of new schools, how can
the Public School Society make such an application of the school moneys
apportioned to them, when they participate in these moneys only in the
same manner and to the same extent with the ward schools ?

Let the Society point out the clause or section in the act of 1844 which
gives them this power.

An express authority was given them thus to use the school moneys by
the act of April 5, 1817 the act of 1842 was supposed to take it away ; the
13th section of that act declaring that, so far as related to the distribution
of the school moneys, the schools of the Public School Society should be
considered as district schools of the city.

This power was restored by the 13th section of the act of 1843, which
authorized the trustees of the Public School Society to appropriate all
moneys received by them by virtue of that act " to any of the purposes of
common school instruction, including the support of normal schools, which
they were authorized by law to do before the passage of that act : Provided,
however, that the fee of all real estate purchased under that act shall vest in
the city and county of New York."

The llth section of the act of 1844, corresponding to the 13th section
of the act of 1843, omits this power altogether, except as it regards the nor-
mal schools. Its language is as follows :

And said schools (i. ., the schools of the Public School Society, with
others) shall participate in the apportionment of the school moneys in the
same manner and to the same extent as herein provided, in respect to such
schools as may be organized under this act, or which shall have been organ-
ized under the act passed April 11, -1842, or the amended act passed April
18, 1843, and including the support of normal schools of the Public School
Society for the education of teachers employed, or to be employed, in any
of the schools, subject to the provisions of this act. Titles to all school
property, real or personal, hereafter purchased from moneys derived from
the distribution of the school fund, or raised by taxation in the city of New
York, shall be vested in the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalfy of said city.

Now, why was this power, to the Public School Society so expressly
given in the act of 1843, stricken out of the act of 1844 ?

Because, as we* have been told, the act of 1844 is sufficiently clear with-
out it.

Is it so ? Was it, then, stricken out at the instance, or with the sanction
or concurrence, of the friends of the Public School Society, because the act
of 1844, in its other provisions and clauses, was so clear in support of the
claims of the Society as to render this clause unnecessary ?

Where are those other clauses and provisions ? The learned counsel has
referred us to but one, but that one he has considered conclusive. It is the

SPEECH OF ME. MASON. 557

last sentence of the llth, section, just quoted, "with regard to the titles of
school property ; and the question has been asked with an air of triumph,
Why provide for the manner in which the titles to real estate, thereafter
purchased from moneys to be derived from the distribution of the school
fund, shall be vested, if no real estate whatever can be purchased from those
moneys ?

To this I answer :

1. That, if the power is given by this clause, it is only given by implica-
tion. It is inferred from the phraseology that the Legislature intended to
give the power ; it is not given in express terms.

Now, it is a rule that you cannot, from a single clause or a few words in
a statute, imply a power or authority, when there are other clauses or sec-
tions in the statute which expressly prohibit it. The law or statute must be
so construed, if possible, as to be consistent with itself.

You cannot infer, from the provisions about the title to property to be
purchased with the school moneys, that the Society had a right to expend
their surplus moneys in the establishment of new schools, when the very
next section requires all these surplus moneys, after defraying their " neces-
sary and legal expenses," which, we have seen, means the ordinary current
expanses, to be paid into the public treasury. You cannot, I say, infer this,
if there is any other construction which will make the two sections har-
monize.

2. If we look at the 13th section of the act of 1843, we shall see, I think,
the true reason of the section in question, and the explanation of the diffi-
culty.

That section provided that the fee of all real estate purchased under that
act should vest in the city and county of New York. The act of 1844 was
passed on the 7th of May, and repealed the act of 1843, or, at least, this sec-
tion of it. On the 1st of May, 1844, the amount apportioned to the Public
School Society, with others, had been paid. It was paid under the act of
1843, and the Society had a right to employ it in the manner authorized by
that act. The act of 1844 was prospective, and applied only to moneys
thereafter to be received. It might have been a question whether, if a pur-
chase of real estate were made by the Public School Society after the 7th
of May, 1844, out of moneys received on the 1st of May, 1844, it would
have been obliged to vest the title in the Corporation, the act of 1843 hav-
ing been repealed ; and, to obviate any doubt on this point, the section in
the law of 1844 was doubtless passed.

If it were necessary to adduce any authority in support of the views I
have taken of this whole subject, it is at hand and authority which ought
to be, with the Public School Society, perfectly decisive. It is that of their
own recorded opinions, expressed not once, or twice, or casually, or inadver-
tently, but frequently and deliberately, from year to year.

The position now taken by its learned advocate is, that the acts of 1842
and 1844 have not taken away any of the powers which the Society formerly
possessed, and were not framed with that intent, but that the right of the
Public School Society to establish new schools with the public moneys, and

558 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

to have those schools supported at the public expense, still exists in full
vigor ; that the onty object of the new system was to supply the wants
which the Society could not satisfy ; in fine, that the new system only came
in aid of the Society, and that the two systems were intended, and wisely
intended, to operate side by side, I think the expression was.

Now, let us look at the published documents of the Society.

In the thirty-seventh annual report, for 1842, published shortly after the
act of April, 1842, they say, in reference to that act :

It has pleased the Legislature of our State to enact a statute which, the
trustees fear, will result in subjecting their noble institution to the blighting
influence of party strife and sectarian animosity. The glory of their system,
its uniformity, its equality of privilege and action, its freedom from all that
could justly offend, its peculiar adaptation to a floating population, embrac-
ing an immense operative mass, unable, from their circumstances, to devote
many years to educational pursuits, is dimmed, they fear, forever.

How can this be, if the doctrine now contended for be true ? If this
Society has the same power now which it formerly possessed, of extending
its schools ad libitum, how is the glory of the system dimmed in the least
degree ? Is it because the officers elected by the people can establish com-
mon schools without the intervention of the Society, and that the exclusive
right of the Society is taken away, or because the power of establishing new
schools was considered as altogether lost ?

But to this same report is appended a sketch of the rise and progress of
the Public School Society an extremely interesting document, which ought
to be read by all who wish to become acquainted with the history of com-
mon school education in this city.

On page 37 we read as follows :

In April, 1842, by hasty legislation, an act was passed, materially alter-
ing the existing arrangement and supervision of the schools and the distri-
bution of the school moneys, &c., and contravening the special statutes
under which this Society had hitherto acted.

How are we to understand this, if all the powers of the Society are in
full force, and the new system is only auxiliary to the old ? The admission
of new schools to participate in the school moneys is no contravention of
any special statutes under which the Society had acted, for new schools had
before been admitted to a participation of those moneys without a murmur
from the Society. Besides, they had as much money under the new law as
under the old. How, then, did the new law contravene the old, except by
taking away some of the powers of the Society ? and what powers were
taken away, but those of extending their schools indefinitely ?

Let us now turn to the thirty-eighth annual report, for 1843, published
shortly after the act of April, 1843. In that report they say :

At the time of their last report, the trustees were under painful appre-
hensions as to the future prospects of the institution, induced by the then
recent enactment of the law of April, 1842, the operation of which, they
much feared, would paralyze the public school system, and probably result
in the dissolution of the Society. They have now the satisfactto- n f taMno
that, on their application, the Legislature passed an amendatorj .

SPEECH OF MR. MASON. 559

although not granting all that was asked for, has rendered the law alluded
to more clear and less objectionable, by the adoption of one very essential
and other important features. Under the act as it now stands, the board
hope to be able not only to continue their present schools, but also to make
gradual additions to them ; for they feel assured that the eminent advan-
tages they derive from long experience, especially in their economical
arrangements, will enable the Public School Society to enlarge their school
accommodations out of an appropriation that would scarcely sustain them
upon any other foundation.

We can be at no loss to divine what that one very essential feature was
which the Legislature had inserted in the law of 1843 ; for the trustees ex-
pressly say that, by virtue of it, they would be able to make gradual addi-
tions to their schools out cf their appropriation. It was the clause in the
13th section, before alluded to, authorizing them to " appropriate all moneys
received by them by virtue of that act, to any of the purposes of common
school instruction, including the support of normal schools, which they
were authorized by law to do before the passage of that act."

Here, then, we have again the deliberate opinion of the trustees, ex-
pressed in no equivocal terms, that this clause of the act of 1843 restored to
them the power of adding to the number of their schools, which had been
taken away by the act of 1842.

But this is not all. Their next annual report was dated January 1, }845.
In that report they say :

By the provision of the act of April, 1843, sufficient means having been
placed at the disposal of the board, they availed themselves of it, and have
erected a new public school on Thirteenth street, and also several new pri-
mary schools in desirable locations.

Thus reiterating the 'fact that their power to increase the number of their
schools was derived from the provision of the act of 1843, which placed
sufficient means at their disposal.

They then add as follows :'

By the provisions of the act of April, 1844, it is understood the board
are prohibited from the further erection of buildings ; and it is even doubt-
ed whether they are authorized to pay rent on school premises, or the inter-
est on the large debt, which, in the absence of an adequate tax, they were
induced to incur by mortgaging several of the school-buildings from time
to time during a series of years past, in order to meet, as far as practicable,
the pressing wants of a rapidly-increasing population. Should application
be made to the Legislature, at its next session, for relief in the premises, it
can hardly be doubted that it will be granted.

Thus it will be seen that the trustees of the Public School Society took,
from the very beginning, the same view of the law which the committee
have done, and that they thought it so clear, that they did not hesitate to
publish it from year to year to the world as the only true interpretation.
They had not then, nor until a comparatively recent period, discovered that
the new system was only an auxiliary to the old, designed to provide addi-
tional schools for those whom the Society could not or did not reach ; and
it ought not to be a matter of surprise or disappointment to them if this
board should, on examination, entertain the same opinions as to the mean-

560 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ing of the law which the trustees of the Society themselves have so fre-
quently and deliberately expressed.

The construction for which the committee have contended, is one which
will not interfere with the schools of the Public School Society established
before the act of 1844. It leaves them, as the law of that year left them, in
the enjoyment of all their privileges, and with a fund amply sufficient for
all their necessary and legal expenses.

The trustees of that Society now have under their care eighteen public
schools, in which were instructed, during the last year, 14,103 children, and
fifty-six primaries, or schools for small children, having 8,108 children, and
two public and six primary schools for colored children, in which 1,181
pupils were taught ; making an aggregate of 23,392 * pupils taught in
eighty-two schools under their jurisdiction during the last year.

The school moneys apportioned to the several schools and societies in
the city of New York, for the year 1846, amounted to $189,107.17; of which
sum the Public School Society received, for their twenty public and sixty-
two primaries, $122,184.99, or two thirds of the whole ; while the ward
schools, under the immediate care of the ward officers, received for their
nineteen ward schools and primaries the sum of $55,356.08 ; the difference
between these two sums and the whole amount apportioned being distrib-
uted* to the orphan asylums and other corporate schools provided for by
law.

The resolution now before you will not, it is believed, affect any of the
schools of the Public School Society, except two or three primaries estab-
lished since the passage of the act of May, 1844, nor deprive the Society of
any part of the moneys which may be necessary to enable them to sustain
their schools on the most liberal scale ; but I respectfully submit and insist
that this board are bound to see that the public moneys under their control
are not appropriated in a manner or for purposes contravening the provi-
sions of the law which we are called upon to execute, and therefore hope
that the resolution proposed by the committee will be adopted.

At the close of Mr. Mason's remarks, the Board of Educa-
tion adjourned to the following Wednesday, the 24th of March,
at which meeting Hon. JOSEPH L. BOSWOKTU continued the *eply
to Mr. Ketchum, and spoke as follows :

MR. PRESIDENT: I should not have entered into this discussion with
such formal preparation as the papers before me would seem to indicate, but
for a single consideration. The able argument which was made before this
board at its last meeting, in behalf of the Public School Society, has since
been repeated to the people, by the publication of it in pamphlet form.
This indicates that the Public School Society has great confidence in the
soundness of its positions, and regards the questions under discussion and

* See the Fortieth Annual Report of the Public School Society, for 1847, for these
particulars.

SPEECH OF ME. BOSWOBTH. 561

justly so, I concede as questions of important public concern. Entertain-
ing very different views from those presented in behalf of that Society, I
have deemed it due to the questions before the board, and to the interest
which the people of this city have in the decision of these questions, to not
only examine them with care, but to reduce my views to form, that I might
reexamine them before attempting to present them here, and thus be the
better able to judge of their accuracy. This is my apology, if any be neces-
sary, for departing, on this occasion, from the usual manner of discussing
questions before the board.

The practical questions for the Board of Education to decide are these :

To what extent has the Public School Society a right to participate in
the " school moneys," since the passage of the act of May 7th, 1844, entitled
" An Act more Effectually to Provide for Common School Education in the
City and County of New York " ?

What portion of those moneys can this board " authorize " to be paid
annually to that Society ?

These questions should be determined accurately. This board has a
duty to perform in apportioning these moneys, and its members desire to
know what that duty is, and to discharge it faithfully and firmly. Their
business is to execute the law as they find it, and not to pervert it, or en-
large or restrict the clear meaning of its provisions by construction or infer-
ence.

By the act of May 7th, 1844, certain moneys which this board must
apportion are designated as " school moneys, or moneys for the purposes of
common schools ; " as contradistinguished from moneys to be raised by tax-
ation " for the erecting, purchasing, or leasing of school-houses, and procur-
ing the sites therefor, and the fitting up thereof." Sees. 5 and 12 ; and
1 R, S., 183, sec. 2.

The moneys usually denominated " school moneys " consist of the amount
annually received for the use of the common schools of this city from the
common school fund of the State, an equal sum to be raised by taxation,
and also a further sum " equal to one twentieth of one per cent, of the value
of the real and personal property in the said city, liable to be assessed
therein."

The act says (sec. 5) that these school moneys shall " be applied exchi.
sively to the purposes of common schools in the said city."

By section 12, it is declared to " be the duty of the Board of Education
to apportion all the school moneys, except so much as shall have been raised
for the purpose of establishing and organizing r.ew schools,, to each of the
several schools provided for by this act, and the acts mentioned in the pre-
ceding section, according to the number of children over four and under
sixteen years of age, who shall have actually attended such school without
charge the preceding year."

By section 14, the board is required to " file with the chamberlain of

said city and county, on or before the first Monday of April in each year, a

copy of their apportionment, stating the amount thereof to be paid to the

commissioners of each ward, and to the trustees,, managers, or directors of

562 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the several schools enumerated in the llth section of this act." The cham-
berlain may pay on the drafts of the commissioners or of the trustees the
sums severally " apportioned " to them, " but no such drafts shall be paid
unless countersigned by the president and clerk for the time being of the
Board of Education."

Section 6 declares that " the said Common Council shall, on application
of the Board of Education, and at such monthly or quarterly periods subse-
quent to the 1st of May in each year as they may determine, direct that a
sum or sums of money equal in the aggregate to the amount last received
by the chamberlain of said city and county from the common school fund,
together with the sum so received from the school fund, and also one twen-
tieth of one per cent., as provided in the preceding section, be deposited by
him in one of the incorporated banks of the said city," to the credit of the
commissioners of the ward schools, and of the schools and societies men-
tioned in the llth section of the act, subject to the drafts of such commis-
sioners, and of some person duly authorized by such societies to draw for
them ; " the said drafts to be countersigned " by the president and clerk of
this board, as provided by section 14.

Such are the moneys to be apportioned, and such is the process by which
the money is to be drawn when apportioned.

First, the board apportions the moneys ; next, files with the chamberlain
a copy of the apportionment ; and lastly, applies to the Common Council,
and, on such application, the Common Council directs the chamberlain to
deposit those moneys in bank to the credit of the commissioners, societies,
and schools entitled to draw them ; but, when so deposited, they are to be
drawn by authority of drafts made by such commissioners, and the author-
ized agents or officers of the schools or societies, and countersigned by the
president and clerk of the board.

The provisions already cited contemplate not only an apportionment of
all the " school moneys," but the deposit of all of them, and the receipt of
all of them by the commissioners, societies, and schools enumerated in the
llth section of the act. But there are other provisions which limit and
restrict the operation of those above cited.

The llth section provides that " the schools of the Public School Soci-
ety," and also other schools enumerated in that section, " shall participate
in the apportionment of the school moneys, in the same manner and to the
same extent as herein provided in respect to such schools as may be organ-
ized under this act, or which shall have been organized under the act passed
April llth, 1842 ; or the amended act, passed April 18th, 1843."

The question, then, is : To what extent is it herein provided that the
schools organized under the three acte last named may participate in the
apportionment of the school moneys ?

They cannot participate in the school moneys to such an extent that they
or their officers can use a dollar of such moneys to purchase a lot, erect, or
hire a school-house.

All moneys needed for such purposes are raised under a special power
contained in section 5 ; and, when raised, can, by section 7, be only drawn

SPEECH OF ME. BOSWORTH. 563

by authority of a u special appropriation by the said Board of Education ;
and all drafts upon said funds shall be made by the president of the board,
countersigned by the clerk, and made payable to the order of the persons to
whom the same shall be paid."

If the Public School Society can participate iu these " school moneys "
to an extent which will enable it to use any portion of them to erect or hire
buildings, or purchase lots, then it can participate in them to a greater
extent than the ward schools can, and to an extent which will enable it to
apply them to uses to which the ward schools are prohibited from applying
them.

But the llth section says this Society " shall participate in the same
manner and to the same extent."

The 12th section further provides, that " if the school moneys appor-
tioned agreeably to this section shall exceed the necessary and legal expenses
of either of the schools or societies provided for in this act, the board shall
authorize the payment only of such necessary and legal expenses ; any bal-
ance remaining in deposit shall be paid by the Board of Education into the
city treasury."

The board, then, has a duty to perform beyond the act of apportioning,
filing a copy of an apportionment made according to the number of schol-
ars taught, and applying to the Common Council to direct a deposit of the
moneys thus apportioned.

If, on making such apportionment, the board ascertains from the report
of this Society that the moneys thus apportioned exceed the amount of the
actual annual expenses of the Society in conducting the schools for which
the Society is entitled to draw, the board is expressly prohibited from
authorizing the payment of only such actual expenses. "When I say actual
expenses, I assume none to have been incurred except such as will be
" necessary and legal." The necessary and legal expenses of an honest and
intelligent agent will not exceed the actual expenses of his agency.

" The Board of Education shall authorize the payment only of such
necessary and legal expenses ; " and " the Board of Education shall pay any
balance remaining in deposit at the end of each year " " into the city treas-
ury."

It is the duty of the board, then, to keep all of the moneys " appor-
tioned," beyond the amounts sufficient to defray " the necessary and legal
expenses " of the several schools and societies within its control, until the
end of the year ; and, at the end of each year, to pay any balance remain-
ing in deposit into the city treasury.

In this very provision is contained a clear prohibition against the Public
School Society using any of the " school moneys " to establish new schools.
It is a clear answer to their claim, to have all the moneys " apportioned " to
scholars according to numbers paid over to them absolutely. If the Legis-
lature intended to allow them to use surplus " school moneys " to erect new
buildings and purchase new lots, why prohibit the board from authorizing
the payment to them of all the moneys to which they would be entitled by
an " apportionment " according to the number of scholars taught ? Why

564: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

declare that the board shall authorize " the payment only of such necessary
and legal expenses " ?

If the act be construed to prohibit the Society from establishing any new
" common schools," this provision is intelligible and easily executed. But
if the power be conceded to the Society to establish as many new schools as
it may deem expedient, and the right be also conceded to it to use surplus
" school moneys," to purchase new lots, erect new buildings, and organize
new schools, then this provision is unintelligible, as this board can never
conjecture what its legal expenses for any current year will be ; and may
assume to withhold moneys to which the Society has an absolute right, and
full power to expend, when received, as may suit its pleasure.

The argument in behalf of the Public School Society proves too much.
If its construction of its powers be correct, it can establish as many new
schools as it may deem expedient, and will be entitled to participate in the
school moneys for instructing children in such new schools. If this be so,
then its powers and rights are immeasurably greater under the act of May 7.
1844, than they were before the act was passed. The 12th section of that
act provides that " any deficiency to meet the necessary legal expenses of
either of the said schools or societies shall be supplied by the Common
Council of the said city, in anticipation of the annual tax for the support
of common schools, as provided in section 5 of this act. The Board of
Education shall, in all cases, certify to the Common Council the cause of
such deficiency, and that the same was unavoidable ; and unless such certifi-
cate be made, the said Common Council may refuse to raise the sum re-
quired to meet such deficiency."

It is clearly the duty of the Common Council to supply any deficiency to
meet the necessary legal expenses of the Society in conducting each and all
of its schools which are entitled to participate in the apportionment of the
school moneys. If, then, the Society may establish an indefinite number of
new schools, by mortgaging their property to raise money to erect new
buildings, may supply those new schools with teachers, books, and station-
ery if such acts are legal if such new schools may participate in the
school moneys, then it is the duty of the Common Council to raise any
amount which may be required, in addition to the school moneys appor-
tioned to the Society, to defray the necessary expenses of conducting such
new schools.

On such a construction, the Public School Society has an unlimited and
unregulated power and discretion to establish as many schools as it may
deem expedient, and the Common Council must raise the requisite means to
pay the expenses of conducting them. That Society, instead of being
restricted to a right (so far as relates to its right to claim and apply public
funds) to use only its surplus of school moneys in erecting new buildings,
after amply compensating its teachers (as it was restricted by the act of
April 5, 1817), has now the right to ask for, and be furnished with, the
means to defray the necessary and legal expenses of any number of new
schools which it may see fit to establish. A construction which leads to
such conclusions is absurd.

SPEECH OF MR. BO8WORTH. 565

The act of May 7, 1844, abrogated the power of the Society to establish
new schools for the purpose of merely increasing the number of common
schools, and, for all practical purposes, to establish any new school. That
point I will consider presently. I state the proposition here merely for the
purpose of observing that, on such a construction of the act, there is no
conflict in its provisions, and that each and all of them are intelligible.

Under such a construction, the board can easily determine what sum to
authorize to be paid to this Society. The Society can, if it has kept its
accounts properly, report to the board how much it paid, for the year end-
ing at the date of its last report, for teachers, books, stationery, and fuel,
for the schools established prior to May 7, 1844 ; what amount it paid for
rent of buildings, or for interest on mortgages of the buildings in which
such schools were kept. The board will authorize the payment of a suffi-
cient amount of the school moneys to defray the like amount of expenses
for the current year. If, from any " unavoidable '' cause, they prove insuffi-
cient to- defray the necessary and legal expenses of the current year, the
board will give the necessary certificate to make it compulsory on the Com-
mon Council to supply the deficiency. In that way the Society is certain
of receiving ample means to sustain and conduct efficiently all the schools
established when this act was passed. If they determine to establish more
schools, then it will be because they are determined to execute the duties
which the officers elected under this act were elected to perform. It is
made the duty of the officers elected under this act to organize new schools
whenever and wherever they are necessary. Suppose these officers pass upon
an application for a new school, and decide that one is not necessary in the
place designated. The officers of the Public School Society, in their great-
er experience and sounder discretion, determine it expedient to establish,
and do establish, one there. The moneys apportioned to the Society, after
paying its other expenses, are insufficient to defray any part of the necessary
and legal expenses of this new school. How can this board certify that
such expenses were unavoidable ? Unless this board does so certify, the
Society has no certainty of obtaining money to meet the deficiency. And
yet, if its powers are such as it has urged here, it is the duty of the Com-
mon Council to supply that deficiency.

The only construction which can be given to the act which will render
its provisions harmonious, is this : The Public School Society is deprived
of the power to increase the number of its schools. This board shall au-
thorize the payment to it of only sufficient moneys to defray the necessary
and legal expenses of " the schools " which had been established by it on
the 7th of May, 1844 ; and if all the moneys " apportioned " to it are insuf-
ficient to defray those expenses, the deficiencies shall be supplied. By that
rule, it will participate " in the same manner and to the same extent " as
the ward schools. By any other rule, it will participate in a different man-
ner and to a different extent.

The Society cannot strengthen its claim by invoking that provision
which declares that the moneys appropriated shall " be applied exclusively
to the purposes of common schools."

566 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

The erection of school-houses, the purchase or hiring of lots, is not a
" purpose " to which the ward schools or their officers can apply this money.
It is not a use to which it can be applied under the common school law of
the State. There is nothing in the act to tolerate the position that such a
class of expenditures is legitimately for common school purposes, when thc-
acts of that Society are in question, and that the same kind of expenditures
would not be for common school purposes when the acts of the ward officers
and of this board were in question.

Neither can that Society strengthen its claim by that part of the 12th
section which provides that, " if any school shall have been ' organized '
since the last annual apportionment, ' it shall be entitled to draw for the
scholars taught in it.' "

That clause clearly refers to schools organized by the ward officers and
this board. The 3d section declares that the schools organized under this
act shall be designated " ward schools." The 8th, 9th, and 10th sections
provide how these schools shall be organized. The llth section provides
that the various schools enumerated in it shall participate in the school
moneys in the same manner and to the same extent as herein provided in
respect to such schools as may be organized under this act.

Section 12 provides for the apportionment of all the school moneys,
" except so much as shall have been raised for the purpose of establishing
and organizing new schools." Then comes the provision that, " if any
school shall have been organized since the last apportionment," &c.

Thus this clause incontestably refers to " any school organized under this
act." The great object for which this act was passed was to organize new
schools. The possibility of the Public School Society organizing a new
school is not alluded to throughout the act.

Nothing can be found to support the claim of the Public School Society
in the 36th section of the act, which requires them to report annually " the
whole number of schools within their jurisdiction." To make an argument
out of that provision, it must be assumed that this act contemplates that
the number of their schools will or may be increased. I shall undertake to
show that the act contemplates that the number of their schools may, and
probably will, be diminished; that some t subsequent report will show a
diminished number of schools within their jurisdiction, and that, too,
though they perform their full and whole duty to the public, and do it well.

The New York Orphan Asylum School, the Roman Catholic Orphan
Asylum School, the school of the Mechanics' Society, the Harlem School,
the Yorkville Public School, the Manhattanville Free School, the Hamilton
Free School, the Institution for the Blind, the school of the Leake and
Watts Orphan House, the school connected with the Almshouse, and the
school of the association for the* benefit of the Colored Orphans, also have
the right, as well as " the schools of the Public School Society," to partici-
pate in the school moneys in the same manner and to the same extent as the
ward schools. The trustees or managers of these various schools and socie-
ties are also required, by section 36, to report annually and severally " the
whole number of schools within their jurisdiction." And yet, by section

SPEECH OF MR. BOSWORTU. 567

11, it is only " the school," the single and solitary school of each of them,
that can participate in the school moneys. Either of those societies can
make as strong an argument on section 36, in favor of the right of a " new
school " of theirs to participate in the school moneys, as the Public School
Society.

That Society cannot strengthen its claim by appealing to the concluding
clause of section 11, which provides that " titles to all school property, real
or personal, hereafter purchased from all moneys derived from the distribu-
tion of the school fund, or raised by taxation in the city of New York, shall
be vested in the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city and county
of New York."

Before the act of May 7, 1844, was passed, that Society held a large
amount of moneys derived from the " distribution of the school fund," and
raised by taxation in the city of New York, which, by the act of April 18,

1843, that Society was authorized to expend in purchasing lots and erecting
buildings. But the latter act required the title to all school property pur-
chased with such moneys to be vested in the city Corporation.

Those moneys had not been wholly expended when the act of May 7,

1844, was passed. The act of April 18, 1843, was repealed by the act of
May 7, 1844.

Hence, the latter act required the Society, if it used that balance to pur-
chase school property, to vest the title to all property, which they should
thereafter purchase with those moneys, in the Corporation. The title to all
they had previously bought with it had been already so vested, if the
officers of that Society did their duty. The Legislature did not intend, by
repealing the act of 1843, to give that surplus to the Society. That body
intended that, though real or personal estate should be purchased after the
repeal of the act of 1843, with that money, that the title to such real or per-
sonal estate should be vested in the Corporation.

This view answers the whole argument made in behalf of the Public
School Society, so far as it was based on the terms and provisions of the act
of 1844.

The 50th section of this act repeals the acts of April 11, 1842, April 18,
1843, and all other acts specially applicable to public or common schools in
this city and county, so far as the same are inconsistent with the provisions
of this act.

The act of 1842 was unlike the act of 1844. The 13th section provided
that " the schools of the Public School Society " " shall be subject to the
general jurisdiction of the said commissioners of the respective wards in
which any of the said schools now are or hereafter may be located." The
act of 1843 had the same provision. This clearly contemplated the estab-
lishment of new schools by the Society. There is no such provision in the
act of 1844.

The 15th section of the act of 1842 made it the duty of the board to
apportion the school moneys among all the schools in proportion to the
number taught ; and section 16 made it the duty of the ward commission-
ers, when they received this money, to apply it at once to the use of these

568 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

schools according to the apportionment. The act of 1843 had the same
provisions.

By the act of 1844, the money which goes to this Society is not paid to
the ward commissioners, but is so far placed under the control of this board,
that the board is prohibited from authorizing the payment of only enough
of the moneys apportioned, to defray the necessary and legal expenses of
the Society in conducting the schools entitled to participate in these
moneys.

Why could not that Society, after it had received an apportionment
under the act of 1843, use those moneys to establish new schools ? The
reasons are these: the llth section of that act repealed all acts "and all
provisions therein providing for, or directing, or concerning the disbursing
or appropriation of the funds created or applicable to common school edu-
cation in the city and county of New York," so far as the same were incon-
sistent with the provisions of that act.

That act made two funds : one, to organize new schools, which was
placed under the exclusive control of the ward officers ; the other, to defray
the expenses of schools fully organized. Hence, although the Society had
more money apportioned to it, and received more money, than was required
to defray the expenses of its established schools, it could not use the surplus
to establish new schools. Section 9 of that act, like section 5 of the act of
1844, directed that the school moneys thus apportioned should be applied
exclusively to the purposes " of common schools in said city."

The general act in relation to the common schools of the State, which,
by the act of 1842. was extended to this city, did not provide for using such
moneys to purchase lots, or hire or erect school-houses, but, on the contrary,
prohibited such use of them. It was, then, inconsistent with the provisions
of the act of 1842 for the Public School Society to use those moneys for any
such purpose. In 1843, the Legislature authorized them to use the school
moneys which they received for " any of the purposes of common school
instruction, which they were authorized by law to do," before the passage
of the act of April 11, 1842. This amendment gave authority to do that
which the act of 1842 did not allow to be done.

There is no such authority contained in the act of 1844. The latter act
only gives the right to " participate in the same manner and to the same
extent " as the ward schools. The extent to which the ward schools can
participate, is such as will defray the expense of schools fully organized and
established. Neither the ward officers nor this board can employ these
moneys to establish new schools.

The Public School Society, in their annual report for 1845, declared that
they understood such to be the fair meaning and force of the act of 1844.
At page 4 of that report, the Society expressed its own deliberate judgment
of its powers under the act of May 7, 1844, in these words :

By the provisions of the act of April, 1844 (meaning May 7, 1844, as
that is the date of the passage of this act), it is understood the board are
prohibited from the further erection of buildings : and it is even doubted
whether they are authorized to pay rent on school premises, or interest' on

SPEECH OF MB. B08WORTH. 569

the large debt, which, in the absence of an adequate tax, they were induced
to incur by mortgaging several of the school-buildings, from time to time,
during a series of years past, in order to meet, as far as practicable, the
pressing wants of a rapidly-increasing population.

The Society now claim not only that such opinion was erroneous, but
that they have the power, under that act, to establish as many schools and
erect as many buildings as they please ; that such schools will be entitled to
participate in the " school moneys," and that such moneys may be applied
to defray the expense of erecting such new buildings. The view of the law
which the Society expressed in their annual report for 1845, was undoubt-
edly correct ; but that view the Society now repudiate.

The last and main ground on which the Public School Society rests its
claims, is the power given by the act incorporating it. Its learned advocate
contended that this Society " had a right by law the law of its creation
to build as many school-houses and open as many schools as it pleased ; "
that this right was indestructible, and that the Legislature could not abro-
gate it.

To the first proposition, in the broad terms in which it is expressed, I
cannot subscribe.

The Society, in its origin, was an eleemosynary institution it was a
charity school. The objects of its bounty were precisely defined. The act
of incorporation (passed April 9, 1805) recites " that De Witt Clinton, and
others, have associated themselves for the laudable purpose of establishing a
free school in the city of New York, for the education of the children of
persons in indigent circumstances, and who do not belong to, or are not pro-
vided for by, any religious society."

The 2d section of that act gave power to the trustees, for the time being,
to establish two or more free schools, when a majority of the members of
the Corporation, at a general meeting, by a majority of all of them, " shall
judge it expedient, for the more fully extending the benefits of education
to poor children, agreeably to the benevolent design of the said associa-
tion."

The act of April 1, 1808, extended " the powers " of the Society " to all
children who are the proper objects of a gratuitous education," and changed
its name to that of " The Free School Society of New York."

This was the whole extent of its powers down to January 28, 1826. I
deny that the Society had the right to establish more schools than could be
employed to teach children who were " the proper objects of a gratuitous
education." Its powers, conferred by the law of its creation, had this
extent,, and no more.

Conceding these powers to be irrepealable, and the argument in behalf
of the Society establishes an abstract right, which, practically, is a mere
abstraction, and nothing else. It can have no occasion to increase the num-
ber of its schools to instruct children of this description. A tithe of its
established schools will accommodate all the indigent children who are the
proper objects of a gratuitous education. If by that phrase is meant such
children as cannot acquire a common school education without the exercise

570 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

of the bounty of the benevolent members of this Society, then it may be
answered that this city contains now no such children. If there are not
schools enough to accommodate all children, whether their parents are rich
or poor, or do or do not belong to any religious society, then it is the duty
of the ward officers, and of this board, to supply the deficiency. We have
no pauper scholars in this city. None need go a-begging for admission to a
common school. All are provided for. The power of the Society to pro-
vide schools for pauper children has been reduced to a skeleton abstraction,'
by the intelligence, liberality, and humanity of our citizens. They have
provided a system under which all can be educated on common terms, with
common rights, and without any one having the power to point to any
other as a beneficiary. Each can feel the consciousness of a common inde-
pendence, of equality of privileges and rights.

In 1826, an act was passed by which this Society was made the agent or
instrument of the public in disseminating common school education. That
act made it its duty to " provide for the education of all children in the
city not otherwise provided for, to the extent of its means." By that act,
the same agency was entrusted to that Society which, by the act of May 7,
1844, is entrusted to the officers elected under the latter, but with this strik-
ing difference : the latter officers are not limited in the amount of duty by
" the extent of their means." They are required to supply all needed ac-
commodations, and draw on their constituents for the means to defray the
expense. It is as much within the power of the Legislature to repeal the
act of 1826, as the act of 1844. The latter act has repealed the former.
The officers elected under the act of 1844 are charged with doing the whole
duty which the act of 1826 charged that Society to perform, so far as its
means might extend.

Tha act of January 20, 1829, gave power to that Society, on complying
with certain formalities, and on the resolution of a majority of the whole
number of trustees at a regular meeting, confirmed by a vote of any subse-
quent regular meeting, declaring it " necessary and proper " so to do, to
mortgage any of its property " for the purpose of carrying into effect the
objects of the said Society, as the same are set forth and expressed in any
of the acts of the Legislature relating thereto."

So far as they are authorized to mortgage, to carry into effect the objects
expressed in the act of 1826, the power is clearly repealable, and has been
repealed. The Society has no power to mortgage their property, to run a
race of competition with a public body which is charged with the duty of
providing for the entire common school education in the city. Although
the Society may have the abstract right to mortgage, to raise means to erect
buildings and open new schools to instruct poor children, who are the
proper objects of a gratuitous education, we must do the Legislature the
justice to suppose they could not have contemplated that the Society would
resolve it to be " necessary and proper " so to do, after ample means had
been provided for the education of all children in the city.

The 50th section of the act of 1844 repeals all laws inconsistent with its
own provisions, especially relating to the public or common schools. It

SPEECH OF ME. BOSWOKTH. 571

repeals the act of 1826, which made that Society the agent of the public to
educate all children, and created a class of officers to perform that sacred
duty, and no other.

It repealed the power of the Society to mortgage their property for any
such purpose. It repealed their power to establish " common schools,"
properly so called'.

It repealed, as the act of 1842 in effect did, the law of February 27,
1807, which gave the Society $1,000 annually out of the excise duties.

It repealed the act of March 30, 1811, which gave the Society annually
an additional $500 out of the excise duties, " to promote the benevolent
objects of the said corporation." The act of 1844 makes the taxation which
it authorizes a substitute for, and declares it to be the extent of, all assess-
ments for common school education.

It repeals all laws authorizing the Public School Society to receive any
more of the school moneys than may be required to defray the necessary
and legal expenses of the schools in existence when that act was passed, and
prohibits this board from authorizing the payment to it of more than such
expenses. .

All such provisions are clearly inconsistent with the act of May 7, 1844.

Under this construction of the act, the schools of this Society may, and
probably will, decrease in number. So far as they are established in leased
buildings, they will terminate with the expiration of the leases. When they
are terminated, if a new school is needed, the ward officers and this board
must establish one. In that event, the Society will have occasion to report
a decreased number of schools " within their jurisdiction." They may not
resolve it to be necessary and proper to mortgage their property to supply
its place, when they consider that the people have elected officers, made it
their duty to supply the desired accommodations, and given them power to
command the means to defray the necessary expense.

These considerations show, as I think, conclusively, that the Society has
no power to establish new " common schools," properly so called, nor any
right to mortgage its property for any such purpose. Its original power to
establish free schools for the education of poor children is at best but a mere
abstract right, without there being practically any such objects to call for
its exercise. Its present schools will more than accommodate all of that
description which in legal contemplation can exist, while there is a body of
officers existing under an act which imposes the duty and furnishes the
means of providing for the education of all children in the city.

It is not, perhaps, unnatural that the Society should regret that its pres-
ent powers will confine its new operations to the benevolent and charitable
designs of its founders. A laudable ambition may have disposed its mem-
bers not only to desire the education of the indigent, but also of the chil-
dren of those parents who may feel competent to construct a system adapt-
ed to their wants, and which the public may so fully approve, that they will
feel both pride and pleasure in sustaining it.

They certainly cannot regret the substitution of a new agency for man-
aging public instruction, unless they are conscious that they can perform the

572 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

same high duty with more economy, and more in conformity with the pub-
lic wants. The passage of the act of 1844 is no reflection upon the intelli-
gence, patriotism, or fidelity of their officers. The public sense of the value
of their services is evinced by the provision, which supplies ample means to
continue their established schools with success and efficiency.

It is noj unnatural that the people should desire the election by them-
selves of officers who have the power of subjecting them to taxation, and
the expenditure of their money for public purposes. It would seem all fit
and proper that it should be so. Public attention is evidently sufficiently
observing of the action of the school officers to indicate that, if they fail to
meet public expectation, successors will be elected to fill their places, who
will bring to the discharge of their duties increased intelligence and effi-
ciency.

The possession of power by the Public School Society, equal to that of
the ward officers, to organize new schools, can only be desired for the patri-
otic purpose of proving the Society to be a better public agent than the
officers elected under the act of 1844. Two agents equally good, when
either one can do the whole duty, would seem to be unnecessary. Unless
the Public School Society can serve the public better than their officers, the
exercise of the same powers concurrently by both would not promise any
practical utility. As the law now is, I am forced to the conclusion that the
Society has not the power which it claims, and which, for the purpose of
removing doubts, it generously invites this board to unite with it in an
application to the Legislature to grant to it. That is a matter which, I
think, properly belongs to the people, by whom the members of this board
were elected. The application, when made, should be made by them, and
not by their officers, who were elected to execute the law as it is.

The board cannot properly devote itself officially to any thing else than
a full and efficient discharge of the trust confided to it, and to an impartial
and firm execution of the law which defines its powers and prescribes the
rule of its action. I think that the Board of Education is expressly prohib-
ited by that law from authorizing the payment to the Public School Society
of any greater amount of the school moneys than shall be sufficient to
defray the necessary and legal expenses of " the schools " established and
within its jurisdiction at the time that act was passed. "

At the close of Mr. Bosworth's remarks, the question was
taken on the adoption of Mr. Mason's amendment, and it was
decided in the affirmative.

When the resolution was reported to the trustees of the Soci-
ety, the subject was referred to the Executive Committee, with
directions to memorialize the Legislature for a declaratory act,
defining the powers of the Society. This course was according-
ly taken, and on the 4th of March, 1848, the following bill was
passed, and became a law :

DEATH OF LINDLEY MUKBAY. 573

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do
enact an follows :

SEC. 1. Any schools which have been established by the Public School
Society of the city of New York, since the passage of the act entitled " An
Act more Effectually to Provide for Common School Education in the City
of New York," passed May 7, 1844, may be continued and supported, and
may be allowed to participate in the public money apportioned to said Soci-
ety, in the same manner as if they had been established before the passage
of said act ; but the said Public School Society shall not establish any new
school without the consent of the Board of Education.

SEC. 2. The said Public School Society have power to purchase, erect, or
hire other buildings in place of those now occupied by their schools, when-
ever it shall become necessary for the purpose of said schools now existing.

SEC. 3. This act shall take effect immediately.

This definition of the powers of the Society set the question
at rest, and the trustees saw that they had reached the limits of
their sphere of labor, and that thenceforth their energies were to
be employed in imparting the highest efficiency to the schools
then under their care.

The annual meeting of the board was held on the llth of
January, 1847, at which time GEORGE T, TKIMBLE was elected
President, which office he held up to the day on which the Soci-
ety terminated its existence.

LINDLEY MURRAY, the late President, was, at the time, on a
visit to the island of Madeira, whither he had sailed in the pur-
suit of health. But the long life of usefulness which he had
spent was drawing to its close, and, on his return voyage, he was
called to sleep in peace, in the hope of a glorious immortality.

In May, 1849, A. P. HALSEY, the Treasurer, tendered his
resignation, and JOSHUA S. UNDERBILL was elected as his suc-
cessor.

It being deemed expedient to close the primary school in
Oak street, and dispose of the property, an opportunity was pre-
sented of selling it at the price of $8,000, which the Society
accepted, and it was transferred to its new owners.

The demands made upon the treasury became so much great-
er than its resources, that the trustees found themselves obliged
to appeal to the Board of Education for special appropriations to
meet deficiencies. These deficiencies were usually provided for,
in whole or in part, until 1850, when an application was made
for $50,140.10, the deficit existing at that time. The Board of

574 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Education granted $35,000, leaving $15,000 unprovided for, as
liable to objection under the provisions of the law relative to
expenditures for property, the title of which had not been vested
in the city. In 1851, the application was urged anew, and
referred to the Finance Committee of the Board of Education,
who submitted a report adverse to the appropriation. When
the result was communicated to the trustees of the Society, a
resolution was immediately presented, in the following form :

Resolved, That, in the opinion of the Board of Trustees of the Public
School Society, it is expedient to repeat a tender of the transfer of the prop-
erty held by the Society to the Common Council of New York, in accord-
ance with the sanction of the final clause of the act of January 28, 1826,
relating thereto.

The resolution was laid on the table, and the committee hav-
ing charge of the matter were directed to visit Albany, to take
such steps as might be found necessary to protect the rights and
privileges of the Society, a bill being then under consideration
relative to the school systems of the city. The committee dis-
charged the duty assigned them, and reported that a section had
been introduced into the bill, which had become a law, which
contained the following proviso :

But nothing in this act shall take away from the Public School Society
any right which they have heretofore enjoyed ; and the Board of Education
are authorized to provide the Public School Society with all necessary
moneys to make all proper repairs, alterations, and improvements in the
various school-premises occupied by them.

The year 1852 brought, at its commencement, a formal com-
munication from the Board of Education relative to an event
which had already been freely discussed as impending, and
likely to be consummated at a not distant period the union of
the two systems, and the harmonizing of the whole scheme of
common schools in the city under one Central Board. At the
meeting of the trustees, January 26th, a communication was laid
before them, in which it was stated that the Board of Education
had appointed a committee to confer with a committee on behalf
of the Society relative to a plan of union. Messrs. George T.
Trimble, Peter Cooper, and Joseph B. Collins were named as
the Committee of Conference, to which Messrs. Charles E. Pier-
son and James F. Depeyster were subsequently added.

SALE OF SCHOOL IN DUANE STREET. 575

In May, the board decided to borrow $40,000 on bond and
mortgage of their property, that amount being necessary to meet
the expenses of the schools, and the Treasurer and Finance Com-
mittee were directed to take the usual course for obtaining that
amount.

In November, the trustees resolved to sell the primary school
in Twenty-fifth street, between Madison and Fourth avenues ;
and in January, 1853, information being given that Duane street
would be widened by the addition of twenty-five feet from the
north side of the street, and that the property known as No. 10
could be sold for a considerable sum, Messrs. Linus W. Stevens,
William II. Neilson, James F. Depeyster, and George T. Trim-
ble were appointed to report on the expediency of the sale.
This measure became more necessary from the fact that the
building would be reduced to so small a size as to be practically
valueless, and also that a large ward school, under the care of
the Board of Education, had been erected in the vicinity, at the
corner of North Moore and Varick streets. The committee were
directed to take only preliminary steps toward the sale of the-
property, so that the decision of the Legislature upon the bill for
the consolidation of the two systems should be known. In the
event of the failure of the bill, the property should be sold.
The bill failed at the regular session, and the property was sold
to Thomas Hope, for $39,900. The proceeds were to be appro-
priated to the payment of the floating debt of the Society. In
accordance with the terms of the sale, the school was closed on
the 30th of June, and the premises which had so long been occu-
pied for the education of youth in the paths of knowledge, vir-
tue, and religion (the building was long occupied for a Sunday
school), was diverted to very different purposes.

576 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XV.

UNION OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY AND THE BOARD OF
EDUCATION. 1853.

Corporate and Popular Boards of School Officers Resources Importance of a Uni-
form System Proceedings of the Board of Education Committee of Conference
Appointed Basis of Union Adopted Proposed School Bill Proceedings of the
Society Legislative Compromises Extra Session Bill Passed Commissioners
and Trustees Appointed by the Society Transfer of Property to the Corporation
Report of the Committee Address of Peter Cooper Meeting of the Board
of Education Reception of the Members appointed by the Society Resolutions
of Hon. Erastus C. Benedict, President of the Board Remarks of William D.
Murphy, Esq.

THE influence of the popular sentiment, combined with the
embarrassments growing out of the dissimilarities of the system
of the Public School Society and that established by the law of
1842, became more apparent every year. How far the educa-
tional scheme of a great metropolis is likely to be affected, in its
partisan relations, where the school officers are chosen at a gen-
eral election, longer experience in the city of New York will
probably demonstrate. But the Board of Education havmg
been in existence about ten years, and being composed of mem-
bers chosen by the popular suffrage, it was calculated to attract
the sympathies of the majority of the population. The Board
of Education exercised a control over the common school mon-
eys, which were, in the early years of the board, carefully
guarded. The revenue of the Public School Society was found
to be insufficient for its expenditures, and a more frequent and
urgent resort was had to obtaining moneys either by the sale of
property, or on bond and mortgage. The applications made on
several occasions to the Board of Education for the amount of
certain deficiencies, were always warmly contested in that body,
and, on several occasions, were granted only in part, and even
in opposition to the recommendations of the Finance Committee,
who reported adversely on the question of the appropriations.

KIVALBY BETWEEN THE SCHOOLS. 577

The rights- and privileges of the Society had been clearly de-
fined, as was supposed, by the amendments of 1843 and 1844 ;
but, notwithstanding the special provisions of " the declaratory
act," much importance was attached to the issue raised, that the
Society had no right to open new schools and erect new build-
ings the expansive power of the school administration being
deemed to lie only in the Central Board, which had the power
to grant or refuse the application of the boards of school officers
of the several wards of the city.

The ample means placed by law at the disposal of the board
were partially expended in the erection of substantial school-
houses, the first of which were somewhat similar to those of the
Society, with the difference that the basement-story, instead of
being sunk four or five feet below the level of the street, was
built above ground, thus giving improved light and ventilation.
A competition, however, soon arose between the wards in regard
to the size, character, and appointments of the school edifices,
until the whole system of large and noble buildings became dis-
cussed both as an economical and educational necessity and ad-
vantage. The contrast thus drawn between the imposing struc-
tures of the ward schools and those of the Society was more
marked every year. The transfer of pupils from the old to the
new schools was constant, and yet the Society was steadily
increasing the number of its pupils from the thousands of resi-
dents who were annually swelling the mighty tide of population
at a rate scarcely known in the history of the world. These
and other causes had at last evidently fixed the limits of the
sphere of usefulness in which the Society should labor. Its
long-urged purpose of establishing daily normal schools of a
high and commanding character, and a high school or academy
for collegiate education, were placed altogether beyond its grasp.
In ten years, the schools of the new system had already outnum-
bered those of the Society. A noble institution had been found-
ed, and a building erected, at a cost of about $50,000, for the
" Free Academy," and the financial power, very far exceeding
in amount the fondest hopes of the Society, had been exercised
in the rapid development and execution of plans which they had
cherished for a quarter of a century.

An objection had long been urged against the Society. By
its charter, it was an " association " of voluntary members. The

578 THE PDBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

trustees and Executive, elected by the body itself, were responsible
to the Society, and the elections were therefore only calculated
to make the governing power perpetuate itself. The popular
sympathies in favor of an unrestricted system, 'as opposed to a
" close corporation," were easily excited, and the advocates of
change, innovation, or of denominational pretensions, were loud
and persistent in their condemnation of this feature in the con-
stitution of the Society. On a number of occasions, from the
time of the controversy with the Baptists, in 1822, down to the
successful contest maintained against it, from 1840 to 1842, tho
climax which gave the highest force to argument, statistics, and
appeals, was the fact that the Society was a " close corporation."
Neither the labors, the discipline, the system, nor the character
of the Society could be impeached, except upon sectarian appeals
for a portion of the school fund, or by men who were willing to
make it subserve a temporary purpose for political exaltation
and preferment. The character of its officers and members, their
positions in business and social circles, their integrity and con-
scientiousness, their prudence and economy, exercised even to
the disadvantage of the schools from necessity, were beyond
reproach or attack. Never, probably, in the history of the
world, has an institution of such extent, and authorized to ex-
pend so much public money annually, been conducted with such
scrupulous care in regard to its expenditures ; and none has ever
surpassed it in the results of its labors with the same amount of
means.

The most liberal and enlightened friends of education in the
city could not remain insensible to the fact, that the prejudices
which had been aroused could not soon be overcome, and that,
however perfect a corporate system of public instruction might
be made, were its resources sufficient, the day had passed for a
full development of the scheme of the Public School Society.
It became apparent that the interests of public education in the
city demanded a uniform system, under the care of one Central
Board, which should combine, if possible, a conservative charac-
ter with that of the popular prestige. The decision of this
proposition left no alternative the Public School Society must
become a part of the new system, and surrender its independent
trust. How far these considerations may have induced members
of the Board of Education to restrict the revenue of the Society

PEOP08AL OF UNION. 579

in order to expedite the consummation, is a fair ground of con-
jecture, and is left for the judgment of the reader.

A resolution was offered by Wm. Hibbard, M.D., one of the
commissioners for the Seventeenth Ward, in the Board of Edu-
cation, on the 21st of January, 1852, and submitted to the Soci-
ety at an adjourned meeting held on the 26th of the same month,
in the following communication :

To GEORGE T. THIMBLE, President of the Public School Society :

SIR : At a meeting of the Board of Education, held on Wednesday even-
ing last, the following resolution was adopted, viz. :

Ifesolved, That a committee of three members of this board be appointed
to confer with a committee of the trustees of the Public School Society, for
the purpose of effecting a union of the two systems.

Whereupon William Hibbard, of the Seventeenth Ward, Samuel A.
Crapo, of the Sixteenth Ward, and Edward L. Beadle, of the Fifteenth
Ward, were appointed as said committee.

Will you, sir, be pleased to lay this subject before the body over whom
you preside, and signify to them the hope, on our part, that a similar com-
mittee will be appointed on their part, and advise us of the result at your
earliest convenience.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM HIBBARD, Chairman.

Saturday, January 24, 1852.

After a long discussion upon this important proposition,
George T. Trimble, Peter Cooper, and Joseph B. Collins were
appointed as the committee on behalf of the Society. On the
9th of April, Dr. Charles E. Pierson and James F. Depeyster
were added to the number.

The joint committees thus appointed held numerous sessions,
and at length submitted several propositions on behalf of both
parties, and, on the 1st of October, they were presented to the
Board of Trustees. A special meeting for their consideration
was called for the 15th of the same month, at which time they
were read, as follows :

The Public School Society to transfer to the city all the real and per-
sonal estate now held by said Society, subject to all the debts, liens, and
encumbrances thereon, the payment of which shall be assumed by the city ;
the property so conveyed to be forever devoted to the purposes of public
education. ^

And said Society also to surrender and discontinue its organization and
existence.

580 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Previous to the dissolution of said Society, it may select and appoint
fifteen of its trustees to be commissioners at large of common schools, and
members of the Board of Education, who shall serve as such during the
continuance in office of the present members of the Board of Education.

And thereafter there shall be, in addition to the present number of com-
missioners, one member of the Board of Education from each ward, who
shall be appointed by the school officers of each ward.

The said Society to appoint, previous to its dissolution, for each of the
wards in which one or more schools of the said Society are now established,
three of its members, to be trustees of common schools for the wards, who
shall be so classed that one shall serve until January 1st, 1855, one until
January 1st, 1856, and one until January 1st, 1857, who shall possess the
same powers and rights with, and be liable to the same duties as, the pres-
ent ward school trustees.

Vacancies among the trustees so appointed to be filled in the same man-
ner as vacancies among the ward trustees are now filled.

And, after the 1st of January, 185-, there shall be eight ward trustees to
serve four years, two of whom shall be elected each year.

The foregoing propositions to be presented to both boards. If it passes
them, then both shall unite in an application to the Legislature for the pas-
sage of a law consummating the union upon the basis of this programme.

A long and earnest debate arose upon this report, after which
the following resolution was adopted :

Resolved, That the report of the Committee of Conference just submitted
be adopted, as a general basis for legislative action, by the Board of Trus-
tees of the Public School Society ; Provided, that the trustees to be chosen
under the proposed plan shall not be required to reside in the wards for
which they are appointed to serve ; and provided, further, that the Commit-
tee of Conference of this Society shall unite with a committee of the Board
of Education in drafting a law to carry into effect such report, and for such
other modifications of existing laws in relation to schools in this city as
may be deemed advisable ; such proposed law to be submitted first for the
approval of the Society (at a meeting to be called for the purpose) and of
the Board of Education, and then for adoption by the Legislature.

The ayes and nays were called, upon taking the question,
and the gentlemen voting are recorded as follows :

Ayes Messrs. G. T. Trimble, Peter Cooper, J. B. Collins,
II. II. Barrow, F. W. Downer, J. F. Depeyster, John Daven-
port, Benjamin Ellis, W. Mandeville, A. Merwin, W. H. Neil-
son, R. Gk Perkins, M.D., 0. E. Pierson, M.D., Israel Russell,
H. M. Schieffelin, S. W. Seton, L. W. Stevens, I. W. Underhill,
W. Underhill, J. B. Varnum, L. B. Ward 21.

Nays I. S. Underhill, J. T. Adams, W. P. Cooledge, J.

MANIFESTO OF THE SOCIETY. 581

B. Brinsmade, J. R. Hurd, J. W. C. Leveridge, W. R. Ver-

milye 7.

The committee of the Board of Education submitted their
report to that body, and, on the 10th of November, a committee,
consisting of William D. Murphy, E. L. Beadle, Charles D.
Field, Charles H. Smith, and J. E. Gary, were appointed to
prepare the draft of a bill to be presented to the Legislature.
This committee reported on the 8th of December, and the report
was ordered to be printed. The trustees considered the same
report at their meeting on the 17th of the same month, and,
with such amendments as appeared proper, was approved, and
ordered to be returned to the Board of Education as accepted.
The Board of Education submitted a copy as amended at a regu-
lar meeting of that body, and. with two slight alterations, it was
directed to be returned, with the approbation of the trustees.

These suggestions were happily met by the Board of Educa-
tion, and on the 14th of January, 1853, the trustees received
official information of the action of the board. There remained
now no point of difference between the two bodies, and the
measure was recommended for adoption by the Society. A spe-
cial meeting was called, to be held on the 19th, at the Trustees''
Hall, at which time Peter Cooper was called to the chair.

The bill, as adopted by both boards, was read, and, after a
full discussion, the following preamble and resolution were
adopted :

Whereas, The Legislature of the State of New York, in the year 1805,
granted an act for incorporating an institution denominated " The Free-
School Society," for the purpose of founding schools for educating a class
of children not otherwise provided for, which was sustained mainly by the
voluntary contributions of their fellow-citizens ; and

Whereas, The said schools having been, for many years, conducted in a
manner satisfactory to all parties interested therein, on the solicitations of
the Board of Trustees of said schools, the wealthy and other citizens of this
city petitioned for a tax to be levied on the property of its citizens, to be
devoted to sustaining said schools, to be expended through the agency of
said trustees, the name thereof having been also changed to that of " The
Public School Society," at the same time ; said Society were required to
provide the means of education for all children, as far as their means per-
mitted, and which they continued to do for a series of years with energy,
economy, and usefulness ; and

Whereas, The Legislature of the State did, in the year 1842, establish

582 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

another system of common school education, modelled after that established
for the State at large ; and

Whereas, By the terms of said act, and the various amendments thereto,
it was required that the Public School Society should thereafter draw its
funds for the support of its schools, through the agency of the trustees, de-
nominated " The Board of Education," created by the act aforesaid ; and

Whereas, In consequence of adverse construction being put upon the
terms of said act, the trustees of the Public School Society, in order to
avoid a clashing of jurisdiction, did surrender their independent right to
establish new schools ; and

Whereas, The said trustees did, in the year 1851, procure from the Legis-
lature an amendment to the school act, which, in the judgment so expressed
by members of the said Board of Education, would enable the said trustees
to obtain all the necessary funds for carrying on and improving the schools
then under their charge ; and

Whereas, The said Board of Education have refused to furnish the Pub-
lic School Society with the necessary funds when solicited to do. so ; and

Whereas, The Board of Education did, by resolution, invite the trustees
of the Public School Society to confer in relation to a proposition for the
union of the two systems of education, which invitation was met by corre-
sponding action on the part of the trustees of the Public School Society ;
and

Wliereas, Pursuant to such proposition and the corresponding conference
and action of both bodies, viz., the " Board of Education " and the Board
of Trustees of the Public School Society, a form of union has been agreed
upon, as set forth in the proposed act accompanying this paper ; and

Whereas, Notwithstanding the Public School Society have, during a
period of nearly half a century, conducted, with eminent success, energy,
and economy, a great educational institution, in which hundreds of thou-
sands of children have received instruction, yet yielding to the necessity of
the case as above stated, and not from a conviction of their best judgment,
and also hoping that a weighty sense of its importance will lead to the
management of our common schools being committed to the hands of wor-
thy citizens who will consult the public weal exclusively ; therefore

Resolved, By the Public School Society, now duly convened pursuant to
several days' notice in five of the public newspapers in the city of New
York, that our Board of Trustees be, and they are hereby, authorized to
take all necessary measures for procuring the enactment of the act herein
referred to, with such alterations and amendments as may seem to them wise
and proper in this matter, and hereby confirming whatsoever our said Board
of Trustees have done and may do in the premises as fully -as if done by
ourselves.

The projects of union having thus been concurred in by both
bodies, the several committees took the necessary steps for the
enactment of the bill by the Legislature. On the lYth of Feb-

THE SCHOOL BILL. 583

ruaiy, Messrs. Peter Cooper, John Ely, William Mandeville, II.
M. Schieffelin, and S. W. Seton, were appointed a committee to
visit Albany, and take such measures as might be deemed proper
to have the interests of the Society fully represented and recog-
nized.

The bill became the subject of considerable controversy, and
the conflicting opinion's and views had a fair field of encounter
on so important an issue as the surrender of the charter of a
great public institution, which had done so much for the city and
the nation at large. Compromises and concessions were, how-
ever, made by all parties, in order to consummate the plan of
union. Its failure would have resulted in a loss of strength on
the part of the Society from the fact of such steps having been
taken, and a virtual surrender of its independence in all that
pertains to the dignity and immunities of an establishment of
high character would have been almost inevitable. It would,
moreover, have placed the Board of Education in a position of
delicacy and responsibility which would have been irksome to
every man of fine feeling, while it would have given the antago-
nists of the Society a position of power to embarrass it which
would have been full of unpleasant reminiscences. Notwith-
standing all the influence brought to bear upon the measure, the
differences were not reconciled at a sufficiently early day, and
the Legislature adjourned without the final vote, the bill lying
on the docket so closely in order that one or two days more
would have disposed of it in the regular course of business.

An extra session of the Legislature having been convened,
the bill was called up at an early day, and passed June 4th, and
became a law. The first six sections are as follows:

AN ACT
RELATIVE TO COMMON SCHOOLS IN THE CITY OP NEW YORK.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do

enact as follows :

SEC. 1. The Public School Society of the city of New Tork shall, on or
before the first day of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-three, convey
and transfer, according to this act, by deed to be approved by the Counsel
to the Corporation of said city, all their corporate property to the Mayor,
Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city of New York, subject to all the
liens and encumbrances thereon, and the debts of said Society ; and there-
upon the said property shall belong to the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Com-

584 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

monalty in the same manner as the school property now used and occupied
by the ward schools belongs to the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Common-
alty ; and the schools of the Public School Society shall be ward schools,
subject to the same control, and enjoy the same rights and privileges as if
originally organized as ward schools ; but such portions of the property
aforesaid as have been granted to the Public School Society, subject to the
trust that the same shall be davoted to the purposes of common schools,
shall be held subject to such trust ; and the premises now known as Trus-
tees' Hall, situated at the corner of Grand and Elm streets, shall be used
and occupied by the Board of Education as long as they may think advis-
able, for the meetings and business thereof, and for such educational pur-
poses as said board may direct ; and the residue of the property aforesaid
shall be conveyed, for the purposes of common schools, in the same manner
as the property purchased by the authority of the Board of Education, for
the purposes aforesaid.

SEC. 2. The Public School Society shall, at the time of such conveyance,
make a detailed statement of all their property, real and personal, and of all
their debts of every description existing at the time of such conveyance,
which shall be certified as a full, just, and true statement of all such prop-
erty and debts, by their president, treasurer, and secretary, and shall deliver
one copy thereof, so certified, to the Comptroller of the city of New York,
and the other copy, so certified, to the clerk of the city and county of New
York, for the use of the Board of Supervisors of the city and county of
New York ; and the said Board of Supervisors shall thereupon proceed to
audit and determine the amount of all the debts of the said Society, and
shall cause the same to be certified and filed with the said Comptroller.

SEC. 3. Upon the amount of the debts of the said Society being so certi-
fied and filed, it shall be lawful for the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty
of the city of New York, and it shall be their duty, to raise by loan a sum
not exceeding the amount of the debt so certified and filed, by the creation
of a public fund or stock, to be called " The Public Education Stock of the
City of New York of the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-
Three," which shall bear an interest of five per cent, per annum, and which
shall be redeemable at a period of time not more than twenty years from
the passage of this act. The said Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty shall
determine of what number of shares the said stock shall consist ; and the
said stock shall be disposed of by public competition, under the direction
of the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund of the city of New York. The
moneys raised by virtue of this act shall be applied for the purpose of pay-
ing and discharging all the said debts ; any deficiency, by reason of interest
accruing on the said debts, after the same are so certified and filed, shall be
paid by the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty out of the city treas-
ury ; and any excess, by reason of the said stock being disposed of at a pre-
mium, shall be held as a part of the sinking fund hereinafter provided.

SEC. 4. The Board of Supervisors shall, yearly and every year, until the
said stock shall be wholly redeemed and paid off, order and cause to be
raised by tax on the estate, real and personal, of the freeholders and inhab-

THE SCHOOL BILL. 585

itants of and situated within the said city and county, and to be collected
according to law, a sum of money sufficient to pay the interest on the said
stock as the same falls due, and to pay and discharge the principal by the
time the same shall be payable. All of which moneys so to be raised shall
be under the management and control of the Commissioners of the Sinking
Fund of the city of New York ; and all such moneys so to be raised are
hereby inviolably pledged to pay the interest and redeem the principal of
the said stock.

SEC. 5. The Public School Society may, immediately after so conveying
all their corporate property, appoint fifteen from the then trustees of said
Society to be commissioners of common schools for the city of New York,
and members of the Board of Education, designating the ward for which
each person is appointed, and not more than one for any one ward, who
shall hold their offices till the first day of January, one thousand eight hun-
dred and fifty-five ; and the said Public School Society may also, at the
same time, appoint from among their own trustees three trustees of common
schools for each ward of said city in which one or more of the schools of
said Society are now established, designating the ward for which each per-
son is appointed ; and the said trustees so appointed shall be so designated
in the certificate of appointment that one shall serve until January first,
eighteen hundred and fifty-five, one till January first, eighteen hundred and
fifty-six, and one until January first, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven. The
said appointments shall be made by a certificate signed by the officers of
said Society, and filed with the clerk of the Board of Education ; and the
said commissioners and trustees so appointed shall have the same rights and
powers, and be subject to the same liabilities and duties, as other commis-
sioners and trustees of common schools in said city, except that they need
not reside in the wards for which they are appointed. Any vacancy occur-
ring in the office of any such commissioner or trustee, shall be filled in the
same manner as vacancies in school offices are now filled.

SEC. 6. As soon as the said Public School Society shall have conveyed
all their corporate property, and made and filed the statements, and made
and filed appointments of commissioners and trustees, provided for in the
previous sections of this act, the corporate powers and existence of the said
Public School Society shall cease, and their schools be merged in the system
of public instruction provided by the act entitled " An Act to Amend, Con-
solidate, and Reduce to One Act the Various Acts Relative to the Common
Schools of the City of New York," passed July third, eighteen hundred and
fifty-one, so as to be and remain, pursuant to the provisions of this act, an
integral portion thereof, and then and thereby the said Society shall be dis-
solved, and then and from thenceforth the common schools in the city of
New York shall be numbered consecutively by the Board of Education.

On the passage of the bill, a special meeting of the Society
was called, at which a resolution was adopted extending an invi-
tation to the Board of Education to hold its meetings in the

586 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Trustees' Hall, and another resolution, " that the board surren-
der their schools to the Board of Education, and convey their
property to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city
of New York, on the 1st day of August next, agreeably with
the act of June 4, 1853."

A committee of five trustees was appointed to make the pre-
liminary arrangements necessary to carry the law into effect, and
Messrs. J. W. C. Leveridge, L. W. Stevens, Joseph Curtis, "W.
P. Cooledge, and John Davenport, were selected for that duty.

At a meeting held on the 1st of July, the Board of Trustees
proceeded to nominate and elect the fifteen commissioners re-
quired by the law, and the following gentlemen were declared
to be chosen : C. E. Pierson, M.D., J. W. C. Leveridge, John
T. Adams, Israel Russell, Thomas B. Stillman, Joseph Curtis,
II. H. Barrow, Joseph B. Collins, L. W. Stevens, J. F. Depey-
ster, B. R. Winthrop, Peter Cooper, John Davenport, William
H. Neilson, William P. Cooledge.

The following gentlemen were chosen as trustees :

First Ward. George E. Cock, Pelatiah Perit.

Fourth Ward. Robert R. Crosby, Justus S. Redfield.

Fifth Ward. Ebenezer Platt, Timothy Hedges, Joseph W.
Kellogg.

Sixth Ward. Willett Seaman, James Marsh, Roe Lockwood.

Seventh Ward. James B. Brinsmade, Joseph R. Skidinore,
John Gray.

Eighth Ward. Orlando D. McClain, Wyllis Blackstone,
Joseph Potter.

Ninth Ward. William Mandeville, Charles C. Leigh, Wash-
ington R. Vermilye.

Tenth Ward. Thompson Price.

Eleventh Ward. Nehemiah Miller, Abner Mills, S. P. Pat-
terson.

Twelfth Ward. Ebenezer H. Brown, Daniel F. Tiemann,
Thomas Richmond.

Thirteenth Ward. Richard Reed, Benjamin B. Atterbury,
Samuel W. Seton.

Fourteenth Ward. John Ely, Lewis C. Hallock, Jacob
Harsen.

Fifteenth Ward. Eli Goodwin, Joseph B. Varnum, Caleb
Swan.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF TRANSFER. 587

Sixteenth Ward. John W. Howe, B. C. Wandell, L. A.
Rosenmiiller.

Seventeenth Ward. J. D. B. Stillman, Isaac Ward.

Eighteenth Ward. Augustin Averill, Roger G. Perkins,
James Stokes.

Twenty-font Ward. William P. Lee, Henry M. Schieflelin,
F. W. Downer.

Twenty-second Ward. Lebbeus B. Ward, J. C. Hepburn,
M. H. Mott.

On the 22d of July, at a special meeting called by the Com-
mittee of Transfer, a verbal report was made, and the action of
the committee was approved. It was also

Besohed, That the several sections of the Public School Society invite
the ward officers of their district to meet with them previous to the 1st day
of August, with the view of placing the schools in their hands, during the
vacation, for the purpose of repairs, cleaning, &c.

On the adoption of this resolution, the Board of Trustees
adjourned, sine die.

The Society then held a meeting for the transaction of some
formal business, among which was the reading of the deed of
conveyance of the property to the city. Complimentary resolu-
tions,, returning thanks to the President, GEORGE T. TRIMBLE,
and the Secretary, JOSEPH B. COLLINS, were passed, and the So-
ciety adjourned, to meet on the following Friday.

On the day appointed, being the 29th of July, the Society
held a meeting, at which the Committee of Transfer submitted
their final report, as follows :
To the New York Public School Society :

The committee appointed to make the necessary arrangements for termi-
nating the " existence of the Public School Society," in conformity with the
act of June 4th. 1853, RESPECTFULLY REPOBT :

That they have completed the service assigned, in all respects, and now
propose to lay before the Society a statement of the manner in which it has
been done, and the results which have been severally attained.

It may not be deemed out of place for them to allude to the fact, that
they have acted in all that pertains hereto from a sense of duty, and not
from choice. They have fully felt the ungracious nature of the task allotted
to them, but their best services have been held hitherto subject to the be-
hest of the Public School Society in its days of noble usefulness, and hence
it was not for them to shrink, when, in a grave posture of its affairs, it has
become necessary to bring its concerns to a close, and expunge its name
from among active and benevolent public institutions.

588 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Since it must be so, to fully carry out the law which merges it in the
Board of Education has been their constant care, and they trust that it will
be found that nothing to this end has been left unaccomplished.

In order that the schools should be fully supplied with all necessary arti-
cles of use before their surrender, especially since, in the change at hand,
and the possible confusion which may result at first from it, they may be for
a time unprovided with indispensable supplies, the committee, at an early
moment after their appointment, caused the following notice to be sent to
the teachers generally, viz. :

Any authorized supplies for your school tha^may be required prior to
the vacation in August next, will be delivered, if previously drawn for, dur-
ing the first week in July, say from the 1st to the 7th. No further supplies
will be furnished by the Public School Society, except at the time now
specified.

To obtain the supplies needed, your pass-book, with all the due bills
which you may have on hand, must be sent to the depository on or before
June 27th.

It will be perceived that an early day was fixed in this notice for deliv-
ering the supplies to be drawn for. This was done in order that they might
be easily placed in the schools before the iiine assigned for making a com-
plete inventory of the property.

While the foregoing measure was in progress, the committee caused
blank forms of inventory to be prepared, divided into three classes : first, a
list of supplies in all their variety books, slates, paper, pens, maps, &c. ;
second, a list of books in the several libraries ; and third, a blank sheet,
upon which to describe such philosophical apparatus, minerals, curiosities,
&c., as might be found in a portion of the schools.

To the first, a properly-drawn certificate was attached, which the princi-
pal of every school was directed to sign ; and to the second a similar attes-
tation of the correctness of the return was added, for the signature of the
first assistant or librarian of the boys' department of the public schools ;
but to the third, as it was expected to embrace such matters only as were
considered the special property of the school in which they might be found,
the Society having no claim upon them as not having originally provided
them, no certificate was attached.

The calls for supplies were promptly made, and from every school, in
greater or less quantity, with scarcely an exception. The delivery of these
begun early in July, and it was completed before the 15th instant. So gen-
eral had been the call, that goods to the value of about $2,750 were distrib-
uted on this single occasion. In this stage of the matter, and consistent
with the plan originally laid down, the following notice was printed for cir-
culation, viz. :

Yon are hereby required to furnish a detailed statement, by filling the
blanks in the accompanying list of articles, of all the personal property or
supplies in the school under your charge, adding thereto any other items
that you may find on the premises, the names of which are omitted in said
blanks.

To enable you to do this effectually, you will require the pupils to return

BEPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF TRANSFER.

all books and other supplies that may be in their possession, including
library-books, on or before the 15th of July, after which date no books or
supplies are to be taken from the school.

You will furnish the agent at the depository with four fair copies of said
detailed statement by Wednesday, 20th of July, attested by your signature.

This notice, together with the blank forms of inventory of the personal
property, was distributed by the agent in person, who accompanied them
with such verbal explanation as would enable the parties concerned to re-
turn the papers in suitable condition for use on or before July 20th. Beside
the agent, one of the committee visited the schools generally, that an assur-
ance might be felt that all would be correctly and seasonably done.

Pending the arrangement of these matters, a sub-committee waited upon
the treasurer, and received from him the various deeds, leases, &c., in his
possession, and placed them in the hands of the counsel of the Society, to
make by their aid the necessary deed of transfer and assignment of the
leases, to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city, as the law for
the merging aforesaid requires.

So carefully had every step been taken, that, when the committee met, as
it did on the 20th ultimo, they found every paper complete, and all in a sat-
isfactory form. That these were receivable from one hundred and ten prin-
cipal teachers and twenty librarians, the exceeding promptness with which
the returns were made is both remarkable and commendable.

The following list comprises all the papers submitted to the committee
on the occasion referred to :

Inventories from boys', girls', and primary departments of Public Schools
Nos. 1 to 18, and Nos. 1 and 2, colored.

Inventories of libraries in boys' departments

Inventories from Primary Schools Nos. 1 to 55, and Nos. 3, 4, and 6,
colored.

Inventories from male, female, and colored normal schools.

Inventory of supplies, &c., at the depository.

Inventory of property at the workshop.

List of articles delivered from Public School No. 10, by order of the
board, to Ward Schools Nos. 14 and 29.

List of stoves, &c., from Public School No. 10, on storage with J. L.
Mott.

These papers the committee had ordered to be prepared in quadrupli-
cate, and, being so received, they were assorted, making -four similar vol-
umes, which were directed to be suitably bound in time for the meeting of
the board, called for the 22d instant. For two of these four volumes the law
had already provided an owner ; a third, it was resolved, should be present-
ed to the Board of Education, and a fourth to the Society, for such disposi-
tion as it might see fit to make of it.

At the same meeting of the committee, a deed of transfer was presented,
with an assignment of the leases aforesaid, also, which were carefully com-
pared with a correct list of the property, and then, with some revisions,
were ordered to be engrossed.

590 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

' The following exhibits the property, the fee-simple of which is in the
Public School Society, the same now conveyed in the deed aforesaid :

Public Schools Nos. 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, and, colored,
Nos. 1 and 2.

Public School No. 2, on three lots,- one held in trust.
Primary Schools Nos. 3 and 44, 5 and 20, 10 and 29, 14 and 40, 25 and
26, 27 and 28, 35 and 55, 38 and 89, 41 and 51, 42 and 43, 45 and 46.
Carpenter's shop, 94 Crosby street, and Trustees' Hall.
The above furnishing accommodations for sixty-nine schools.
The following shows the property held by lease, the same being expressly
assigned to the authority before named jn the lease aforesaid :

Primary Schools Nos. 2 and 13, 19 and 37, 33 and 34, 58 and 54.
The same furnishing premises for eight schools.

In addition to the property owned or leased by the Public School Soci-
ety, the following premises are hired from year to year, at the sums annexed
below, all being used for primary school purposes :

Primary School No. 1, Orchard street, . . . $200

" " 4, Chrystie street, . . 200

" " 6, Suffolk street, . V . 130

" " 7, Sixth street, ... 200

" " 8, King street, ' . . .200

" " 9, corner Amos and Bleecker streets, 200

" " 11, Pearl street, ,. . 200

" "12, corner Broome and Ridge streets, 200

" " 15, Stanton street, . . .150

u " 18, Cannon street, '. 200

" " 21, Twentieth street, ". . 175

" " 23, Avenue C and Fourth street, 200

" " 24, cor. Bleecker and Downing streets, 200

" " 30, Centre street, '" .* . 300

" " 36, Forty-third street, . . 200

" " 48, Houston street, . . 150

" "49 and 50, Eleventh street, . 300

" colored, 4 and 6, Second street, . 350

" " 3, Fifteenth street, rent paid to 1856.

The same providing for twenty-one schools.

The title to the ground on which the following schools stand, is already
in the city :

Public Schools Noa. 1, 6, 17; Primary Schools Nos. 81, 82 (three
rooms), and 52 ; affording accommodations for twelve schools.

The whole number of schools under the charge of the Public School
Society is therefore as follows, viz. :

In houses belonging to the Society, held in fee, . . .69

" " " the ground held by lease, 8

" owned by the city, 12

In houses rented for the purpose, . . . . .21

Total, . . .- 110*

* For the location of these schools, see pages 594, 696.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF TRANSFER. 591

The schools generally having prepared a fifth copy of the inventory of
personal property, one of the committee, with the agent, -was detailed to
visit the several schools, and insert it in the visitors' book. They were also
directed to insert in the book of the public or upper schools, copies of the
record of the March examinations, and the reports of the committee on
stoves and fuel lately printed, and in the book of the primary schools the
record of the June examination, with the printed reports just named. These
papers, being secured in the books, will furnish, in permanent form, impor-
tant statistics to our successors, show the care and accuracy with which our
affairs, or a part of them, have been managed, and exhibit also at a glance,
to their several future supervisors, the grade and standing of our various
schools and departments, giving, as they do, honor, qualified praise, or cen-
sure, where they have proved to be due.

The committee, viewing it as a matter of considerable importance, have
attempted a valuation of the property now about to be surrendered by the
Public School Society to the city, and with the following result :

Value of real estate, . V ' . .''.'. $495,300.00

Value of personal property, . ,., ,, ( ,,.<,, .. 109,520.46

$604,820.46
There are mortgages upon the real estate, with

accruing interest, as follows :

One due Chambers street Bank for Savings, . $75,000
" Bowery Savings Bank, ;* . 35,000

" New York Mutual Life Insurance Co., 40,000
" on lot in Forty-seventh street (Public

School No. 18) at time of purchase, . 800

150,800.00

Leaving the value of property unencumbered, . 454,020.46

Add to which the balance of the treasurer's account, 401.39

Making the value of the property transferred to the city, $454,421.85

For the information of those who are desirous of knowing the various
items of which this aggregate is made, a schedule of the property, with the
valuation in detail, is appended to this report.

The committee is informed that all the floating debt of the Society has
been paid, inclusive of rents, to August 1st, 1853. That section of the law
which provides for a certificate of the amount of this debt to the Board of
Supervisors is. therefore inoperative.

The striking fact that the Public School Society is about to close its
existence, and transfer so large an amount of unencumbered estate to the
city of New York, excites in the minds of the committee an honest exulta-
tion, as it must in those of all the well-wishers of the Society ; because upon
grave occasions, and in public bodies, those who should have been and who
might have been better informed, have declared it an insolvent and rotten
concern, which was seeking to conceal its real condition by urging a union

592 TI1E PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

with a healthy and living institution. This calumny, at least, is now for-
ever silenced. In this connection it may be added, that, in its disburse-
ments of public money to the amount of millions of dollars, the first
instance is yet to be shown where it has diverted a single dollar from its
legitimate channel of service. The committee would even go so far as to
add, that few institutions, here or elsewhere, of like or shorter duration, can
exhibit a similar fact. In view of this statement alone, who shall say that
the Public School Society has not acquired fame enough ?

In referring to the payment of the floating debt, the committee feel that
the Society is under many obligations to some in the community who have
been its creditors, for their very great forbearance during its pecuniary em-
barrassments. Though it has done the best it could under the circum-
stances, as it trusts they have believed, yet such has been its keen sense of
the justice and pressing nature of their claims, and such its desire to meet
them, that a less considerate course on their part would have rendered its
position at times intolerable. To cancel all its obligations to its creditors
itself, has been its principal wish, the gratification of which has, it seems,
not been denied to it.

Among the many subjects of inquiry which presented themselves to the
committee, that relative to the probable number of children which has
received instruction in its schools since the Society's organization in 1805,
has claimed and received a good deal of attention, and the committee finds
little ground of doubt that the whole number is six hundred thousand. To
have educated this great number of youth, is to have been the dispenser of
incalculable good to the community at large ; a fact which, while it is a
source of sincere congratulation to the active participants in the labor, may
console them for the sacrifices of time and effort which they have made in
the discharge of their constant and arduous duties. Moreover, since the
opening of the normal schools, more than one thousand two hundred teach-
ers have been educated and fitted for service, a large proportion of whom
are now actively discharging the responsible duties of their vocation in the
schools of this city, securing, by this means, to a period still remote, the
blessings of judicious education to the children of this commercial metropo-
lis. Not a few of the whole number are also diffusing the moral lessons and
intelligence, acquired in our schools, among the children of the neighboring
cities and towns, or in the more distant parts of the Union, who have found
it, we trust, no mean passport to the confidence and good offices of their
new supervisors that they have graduated in the schools of the Public
School Society.

It may be interesting, as a matter of history, to state, that the personal
and real property of the Public School Society has been twice already ten-
dered to the city authorities. The offer was made to satisfy a popular objec-
tion ; it having been argued that so much public property should not be
controlled by a corporation, because it might, sooner or later, become cor-
rupt, and squander it in the advancement .of private objects, or in the fur-
therance of ends not contemplated by the law. It is, perhaps, honorable to

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF TRANSFER. 593

both parties, that the tender was as often rejected, and the Society asked to
hold steadily on its course.

On this day, the schools of the Public School Society have closed for the
summer vacation ; when they open again, their Alma Mater will have ceased
to be. New auspices, new school officers to a large extent, and a new sys-
tem of government and responsibility, will have supervened the ancient
order of things. All the public schools of the city will then own one com-
mon head. The active, and, we trust, generous rivalry of systems which
has grown up of later times, will no longer continue. Rivalry, if any there
be, must be felt among members of the same household, or, at least, between
one municipal division of the city and another, or between individual
schools. What is to be the result of the change, it is not for us to say
whether for the better in relation to the common good, or for the worse.
If we fear the. latter, the sequel may disappoint us ; if we were confident of
the former, we could lay down our corporate trust with cheerfulness, and
with an abiding hope in the future. The result is with the almighty Dis-
poser of events.

The books containing an inventory of our personal property, with a cer-
tificate of the correctness of the return, to be signed by the officers of the
jSociety. together with the deed of transfer, assignment of leases, &c., are
presented herewith, and, when properly signed and legally executed, may
be delivered to the recipients named in the law, who, the committee are ,
informed, are in attendance for the purpose. This done, the Society may
proceed to confirm the nomination of its commissioners and trustees, and
thereupon its existence will cease.

As a conclusion to their labors, the committee offer the following resolu-
tion :

Resolved, That the books of minutes of the Society, of the Board of
Trustees, of the Executive Committee, and of- other standing committees,
together with all the reports, documents, and treasurer's vouchers, and a
copy of the inventory of personal property, &c., be deposited with the New
York Historical Society.

(Signed) L. W. STEVENS, Chairman.

JOSEPH CURTIS,
WILLIAM: P. COOLEDGB,
JOHN DAVENPOBT,
J. W. C. LEVEBIDGE.

NEW YOEK, July 29, 1863.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ESTIMATED VALUE OF EEAL ESTATE AND PEESONAL PEOPEKTY BELONGING
TO THE NEW YORK PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY, JULY, 1853.

o
CO

No. or LOTS.

GROUND.

HOUSE.

FUBNITrKE.

SUPPLIES.

H
S

Pub. Schools.
No. 1

William st.
Henry Bt.

Hudson Bt.
Rivingtonst
Mottst

City

3
3

65x130
75x100
20x65
3

$12,000
10,000

14,000
4,000
8,000

$2,800
3,000

3,400
2,000

2,200
3,000
2,200
2,800
800
2.600
3,000
3,000
3,000
3,600
3,000
3,000
3,600
1.800
2,000
2 % 500
2,500

400
800
600
403

600

300

400
400

400

600

400
300
300
800
300
260

100

400
600
800

400
1,000

800

800
400

900
800

$71,160

$1,200 00
1,250 CO

1,480 00
1,015 00

1,075 00
1,000 00
880 00
1,040 00
600 00
1.105 OC
1,310 00
1,115 00
1,190 00
1,285 00
1,300 00
1,085 CO
1,240 00
500 00
500 00
3,460 00

$16,000 00
22,250 00

38,880 00
19,016 00

21,275 00
4,000 00

1M.IIMI l|

27,840 00
7,800 00
26,705 00
27.310 00
26,115 00
26,190 00
29,885 00
27,300 00
16.085 00
2S,840 00
11,30100
13,500 00
45,960 00
8,600 00

540 00
,905 00
7,130 00
545 00

6,805 00

440 00
540 00
575 00

670 00
9,475 00

540 00
545 00

6,830 00

555 00
625 00
495 00
6.870 00
430 00
376 00

315 00
5(0 00

9,1:0 oo

9,125 00

580 00
7,600 00

6,870 00

9,875 00
550 00

12,165 00
8,885 00

2 In Socle- \
ety&linf
Rutgers (
Church. ;
P. 8. Soc...

: (

City

$8,000

20,000
12,000
10,000

5....

Randall's Island.
Chrystie st

P. 8. Soc...
i

City
P. S. Soc....

3
4

3
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
2
50x98
2
1

12,000
12,000
2,500
12,000
12,000
11,000
11,000
11,000
11,000

8,000
12,000
4,000
10,000
11,000
11,000
11,000
14,000
12,000
12.000
16,000
3,000
6,000
20,000
2,000

9
11

82dst

12
13

17th st

14
15
16
17
18
Colored, 1....
" 2....
Trustees' Hall
Workshop...
Primary
Schools,
So. 1

Houston st
27th st
5th et
13th st
47th st
Mulberry st
Laurcns Bt

6,000
6,000
5,000
20,000
4,000

Crosby st

140 00
305 00
230 00
145 00

205 00

140 00
140 00
176 00

170 00
275 00

140 00
145 00

230 00

155 00
226 00
195 00
270 00
130 00
125 00

215 CO

18000
22000
825 00

180 00
560 00

270 00

275 00
160 00

266 00
286 00

' 2& 13..
" 3&44..
" <

Bayard at

I'. 8. Soc....

1
1

Leased
2,500

4,800
3,800

" 5&20..

' 6
7

P. 8. Soc.. |

21x86
1

2,600

3,600

Suffolk st
Sixth st

" 8

King st

" 9

corner ATDOH &

" 10&29..
11

P. S. Soc.. ^

25x95
1

4,000

4,800

Pearl st

Ridge st

" 14&40..
15

Chrystle Bt

P. S. Soc.. }
Rented

on rear
25x50
1

2,000

4,000

" 17&47..
" 18........
" 19&37..
' 21

Trustees' HalL. .
Cannon st
Greenwich Bt....
Twentieth Bt....
Av. 0&4th Bt..

P. S. Soc...

Leased

4,800

" 22

Basement of

corner Bleeker &
Downing
Thompson Bt....

Seventeenth fit..

P. 8. No. 4.

' 25 & 26..
" 27&2S...
" 30

P. 8. Soc...

25x95
1

3,600
3,000

4,800
6,000

* 31&32..
" S3&34..

" 85 & 65..
86

" 88&S9..
" 41 .& 61..

Stone Bt
Barrow at

25th Bt
43d st

Factory Bt

City
P. a Soc.. |

Rented

1
24x100

1
1

6.000

4,800
4,800

Leased
4,000

P. S. Soc.. |

60x66
2
1

6,000
3,000

6,000
4,800

West 18th Bt....

1214,600

$282,000

$29,995 00

$575,145 00

SPEECH OF PETER COOPER.

595

ESTIMATED VALUE OF REAL ESTATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY (Continued.)

ij
o

o
o

H
O

h.
O

i
i

a
o

$214,500

1262,000

$71,150

$29.995 00

$575,145 00

on rear

No. 42 & 43..

Clinton st

P. 8. Soc.. j

40x50

$2.500

$3,000

$600

$250 00

$6,350 00

" 45 & 46..

Rivington st

" f

36x100
2

4,000

5,000

800

250 00

10,050 On

" 48

Houston st

Rented

300

200 00

600 00

" 49 & 50..

Eleventh st

........

600

210 00

810 w

' 62

City

3K)

160 00

460 00

" 53&S4..

Greenwich st . . . .

P. 8. Soc....

Leased

4,800

800

265 CO

5,865 00

Oolored :

No. 3

West 1 5th st

Rented

.. .

........

200

125 00

325 00

4&6. .

400

215 00

615 00

2 000 00

2,000 00

151 20

84 00

u (i <( ** ->rj

5 00

35 00

Stereotype plates at Depository

205 26
225 00

401 39

Total...

*220,50o! 8274.800

$75.264

34.256 46 1 4605.221 85

The report was adopted, and, the President having an-
nounced in a few words that the Society had closed its official
career, and had executed its last official trust, nothing now re-
mained but to exchange their last salutations as trustees and
members of the Society.

PETER COOPER then rose, and addressed the Society as fol-
lows :

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN : With your indulgence, I -will venture
a few remarks that I have penned, on an occasion that commands our deep-
est consideration. We are now, Mr. President, about to resign our steward-
ship over an institution that has exerted an influence over hundreds of thou-
sands of the young of our city, who are now, in their turn, spreading that
influence far and wide over our common country. Let us, then, Mr. Presi-
dent, each one of us, try in all sincerity to adopt the language of the poet,
where he says,

" 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
And ask them what report they bore to heaven ;
And how they might have borne more welcome news ; "

where the responsibilities of our stewardship will be found impressed indel-
ibly on every heart, causing us to rejoice in every triumph of virtue, and
to sorrow over all the errors we have made. How important, then, it is to
listen to the knell of the departed hours yes ! as if an angel spoke. They
call upon us to gather wisdom by reflection on the experience of the past,
and to apply that wisdom to the discharge of the duties that are now
before us. The stewardship that we are now about to resign is not a re-

596 THE PDBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

prieve from the responsibility of the future. On the contrary, Mr. Presi-
dent, that stewardship should have prepared us better to perform those
duties that are now about to devolve upon us. These duties are of unmeas-
ured importance, not only to the children of this community, but to the
cause of suffering humanity throughout the world. When we cast our
minds over the struggling nations of the earth, and look on the fierce en-
counter now waging between the friends of freedom and progress, and those
despots who are now striving by every means in their power to uproot and
destroy the very foundations of liberal government; when I see, Mr. Presi-
dent, those monarchs of Europe hanging their armies, like an incubus, about
their peoples' necks, eating out their substance, degrading their morals, and
making them their ignorant slaves, to perpetuate the pride and selfishness
of their oppressors ; when I think, Mr. President, of the bare possibility
that tyranny may again triumph over the continent of Europe ; when I look
at the history of the past, and judge of what is possible for the future ;
when I recollect those frightful monuments of former grandeur and lost
greatness monuments now standing as beacons in the pathway of nations,
warning us of danger, and telling us, with silent eloquence, beware, lest a
worse thing come upon us ; "when I reflect on the exalted privileges that
now elevate us among the nations of the earth privileges that other nations
are sighing and suffering in vain to obtain ; when I look on all this, I ask
myself, Can it ~be that these dear-bought, inalienable rights the rights to
worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences, and to form
and carry on a government of our own choice I ask myself, Can it be that
rights and privileges like these can ever be given up and lost ?

I tremble for the answer, when I see the combined influences of pride, of
selfishness, of bigotry, and superstition, all uniting to undermine the virtues
and misdirect the energy and intelligence of our people. Our mission, Mr.
President, has been, and will continue to be, one of no ordinary responsibil-
ity and importance. It is one that claims from us our united and continued
effort to spread far and wide the science of just, necessary, and useful knowl-
edge, until all shall know, from the least to the greatest, those things that
make for their peace. And now, Mr. President, as we are about to enter on
a new and most important field of labor, under different circumstances, and
with new associates, who, I trust, we shall find as truly and earnestly de-
voted to the great cause of human improvement as we are or ever have been
and although they may have adopted different means to attain the same
end, it will be our duty o be slow to find fault or condemn what may at
first appear less desirable than the customary rules and practices that have
prevailed within our own Society. It will better become us to look to those
motes that may by possibility float unperceived in our own eyes, that we
may more clearly perceive those difficulties that will encumber our own
path, and that of our associates, with whom, I trust, we shall ever act with
a pure desire to carry forward a system of public and general education
that, I hope, will maintain the confidence of the community, and prove a
blessing to the world.

REMARKS OF WM. D. MURPHY. 597

The Board of Education was at the same time holding a .spe-
cial session in another part of the building, called for the pur-
pose of effecting the union ; and on motion of Dr. J. "Weldon
Fell, commissioner for the Eighth "Ward, a committee was ap-
pointed to inform the new members that the Board of Education
was ready to receive the commissioners nominated by the Soci-
ety. The President, Hon. ERASTUS C. BENEDICT, appointed Dr.
Fell, Hon. James W. Beekman, and Charles Vulte as the com-
mittee, in whose company the new members soon entered the
hall.

As they entered the room, the board rose, and the President
offered the following preamble and resolutions :

Whereas, On the joint application of this board and the Public School
Society, the said Society was authorized by law to convey their property to
the city Corporation, and to transfer their schools to the care of this board,
and, after appointing certain of their own trustees to remain as school
officers of the wards, including fifteen to be members of this board, to dis-
solve their corporate existence ; and

WJiereas, Said Society has completed said arrangements, and has ceased
to exist as a separate institution ; therefore,

Resolved, That the Public School Society is entitled to the lasting grati-
tude of the people of this city, and of the friends of education generally,
for their unremitted and successful efforts, continued through nearly half a
century, in disseminating the blessings of education and virtue among thou-
sands who otherwise would have been allowed to grow up in ignorance and
vice.

Resolved^ That we cordially welcome to their seats in this board, Thomas
B. Stillman, Linus W. Stevens, Peter Cooper, William H. Neilson, John T.
Adams, Israel Russell, Joseph B. Collins, John Davenport, James F. Depey-
ster, Benjamin R. Winthrop, Charles E. Pierson, M.D., William P. Cooledge,
Henry H. Barrow, Joseph Curtis, and John W. C. Leveridge, who have been
so selected as members thereof, and that we rejoice in the confident hope
that the cause of public education will be strengthened by the union now
completed, and will receive at their hands the same faithful, intelligent, and
disinterested service which it has hitherto received from their enlightened
philanthropy and patriotism.

WILLIAM D. MURPHY, Esq., commissioner from the Seventh
"Ward, seconded the resolutions of Mr. Benedict, and said :

MK. PRESIDENT : The present is an occasion upon which I cannot re-
strain an expression of the feelings which press upon me for utterance. The
cause of education, in view of its influence upon the moral and social wel-
fare of man, is the greatest of all those enterprises which can claim or receive

598 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

our attention. It decides whether man shall be a savage or a civilized being,
and gives rise to the distinctions between savage and civilized society. The
years are comparatively but few since we had in our State, and, indeed, in
our country, no system of public education. The Society which, by law,
has now expired, and a portion of whose members are now coming into this
board, was the pioneer in evolving and building up the great system of
popular education in our city, iu the State of New York, and in the Union.
The members of that Society have nobly won the lasting gratitude of the
people of the State, and particularly of this city, for their faithful, untir-
ing, and persevering labors in the enlightenment and training of so many
of the people of our land. Many of those faithful men have gone through
a life of honor and usefulness, and, after a life of labor, have gone home to
the reward of righteousness. The gentlemen who have constituted the Pub-
lic School Society have been more like fathers than trustees, for they have
cherished the schools under their charge, and the great interest* of public
education with an affectionate care.

Mr. President, we often hear of institutes, colleges, and universities
which boast of their alumni, their graduates, and their labors. We hear of
institutions which boast of the senators, the governors, and the honorable
men who have been indebted to them as their Alma Mater. But here we
have an institution which boasts, not of its tens or its hundreds, but may
proudly boast of the thousands and hundreds of thousands who have
enjoyed the blessings of education under its fostering care thousands who
adorn society, and labor honorably all over the country. The Public School
Society has done much toward moulding the State of New York, and it has
moulded and improved and elevated the educational system of the whole
Union. It has enlightened thousands of minds, cheered thousands of
hearts, and quickened the fires of patriotism now burning in every State
of the Union. Even in the West Indies, this Society aided to kindle the
fires of liberty before the act of emancipation which made freemen of hun-
dreds of thousands of slaves. Where are the men who have done these
things ? Many of them are not here. But their successors are here. You
cannot find a philanthropic institution in the city of New York where the
members of the Public School Society do not perform a large share of the
duty. Now, sir, we are told of the age of chivalry, when men hazarded
their all, and achieved heroic deeds in behalf of their wives, their children,
or their fellow-men. But if those men were entitled to praise, what shall
we say of the men who, for half a century, moulded the impressible minds
of hundreds of thousands of children, leading them to usefulness and honor,
and added a bright lustre to the beauty and glory of our free institutions ?
They have discharged their duties without faltering, swerving, or defalca-
tion. There is no one of them who

" Weighed his virtue in the well-poised scale,
And took the yellow bribe."

I confess, sir, language fails me to bear a fitting testimony to the services
of these laborious and faithful men. I know not how to find words to ex-
press the honor due to them.

THE UNION COMPLETED. 599

Mr. President, I very cordially approve all that is said in the resolutions.
I venerate those men, whose hearts were warm, whose doctrines were pure,
and whose lives have demonstrated, and now demonstrate, that their hearts,
their labor, and their time were consecrated to the high and sacred cause
of public education.

Mr. Murphy was warmly responded to by the members of
the Board of Education, who expressed their sympathy with the
speaker by a spontaneous applause, and the new members were
formally qualified for their office.

Thus terminated, forty-eight years after its inception, the
career of the Public School Society, leaving its progress and its
labors intimately associated with the advancement of all the
great institutions of learning and of benevolence which, were
contemporaneous with its own existence, not less than of the city
of which it was an ornament, and upon which it conferred bene-
fits as great as they were invaluable and enduring.

600 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SOCIETY.

The Lancasterian System Social Problems Elevation of the Masses Educational
Systems Progress and Development The Public School Society Visitation and
Division of Labor Economy Teachers and Salaries Monitors Depository
Workshop Rewards and Libraries Evening Schools Vagrancy, Agent, and
Visitors How Shall the Poor be Reached ? Compulsory Measures The Social
Problems Unsolved The Free and Pay Systems Pay System Abandoned Lot-
teries Corporal Punishment Moral Power of the Teacher Extract from the
Manual Music Introduced, but Discontinued Moral and Religious Instruction
Sectarianism The Position of the Society Sunday Schools and their Influence
Religious and Moral Education Essential to the Welfare of Society Concluding
Observations.

THE system of instruction adopted by the Society at its ori-
gin, was that which had been introduced to the notice of the
British public by Joseph Lancaster, and which became known
by his name, although, as a characteristic style, it was also
called the Monitorial System of Instruction. The Lancasterian
method was the basis, but was modified and improved materially
in the schools of the Society. It was based upon two fundamen-
tal propositions emulation and economy. It aimed to excite
the mental and moral activities, by the distinction it bestowed
upon the more industrious 'and advanced pupils, by their ap-
pointment as monitors ; while the economy of this kind of ser-
vice was obvious, where a moderate cost was an essential element
in the prosperity of a school, especially for the poor. There is
a class of duties not very high, nor requiring a great degree of
literary attainment, which may be performed by the higher
grade of pupils, which, while the exercise of instruction becomes
a decided benefit to themselves in many respects, renders unne-
cessary the employment of adult . and experienced teachers.
Children learn easily from one another ; and the alphabet, sim-
ple spelling, the primary rules of arithmetic, and other lessons
are quickly taught and as well learned by the children as though

DEVELOPMENT BY SUBSTITUTION. 601

they were pointed out by the finger of the philosopher. The
dignity of the office of monitor, filled by rotation, in the several
duties of the school-room, was an incentive to those old enough,
while it seemed to invest the monitors with that degree of au-
thority which made the discipline of a class of ten or twelve
pupils as easy to them as to an adult teacher.

To the ignorant, any progress whatever in the acquisition of
knowledge is valuable, and hence the teachings of advanced
pupils were of as much consequence to the learners as though
they were under more competent control. Although it was an
economical system, it did not cheapen knowledge, in an obnoxious
sense ; it merely gave, in its least expensive presentation, and
through the hands of equals, those first draughts from the foun-
tains of knowledge which otherwise had been denied to the
masses of the lowly.

Although the questions of the social and moral elevation of
the masses have engaged the attention of the most profound
thinkers of the civilized world during the present century, it is a
no less conspicuous fact that the condition of millions seems to
serve as a barrier to their advancement. Notwithstanding all
the expenditures made in this direction for asylums, schools, and
gymnasiums, the underlying mass of the community suffers from
intellectual 'darkness and moral death.

There is a tendency in many institutions, after having passed
through their early stage, and endowments increase, to enter
upon a transition period, which carries them beyond the sphere
for which they were originally designed. The ragged school
becomes a school for children well clothed, and of the middle
class. The rooms in which the poor learned their alphabets,
become filled with the children of parents who desire them to
read history, grammar, and algebra, if not higher branches.
The teacher who first gathered his group of unwashed and reck-
less urchins, gives place to the tutor who has his maps, his atlas-
es, and his lexicons. This advance is not simply progress ; it is
substitution. One class of pupils is replaced by another, and a
new order of charities is required for the benefit of the humbler
classes. This transition has taken place, to a large extent, in the
city of New York. The schools of the Society, which were
founded for the instruction of those " poor children who did not
belong to, or were not provided for by, any religious society,"

602 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

and were consequently not provided for by any parochial school,
after the lapse of about twenty years, became so numerous and
respectable as to excite the attention of the public at large, as
institutions for general instruction. It became an object of ear-
nest care with the Society to elevate the character of the schools
in all their aspects. They were known as schools for " poor
c-hildreii," and many parents did not desire to send their chil-
dren to schools which were distinctively for that class. To re-
move these disadvantages, the system was developed by a long
and careful process. Additional endowments weie secured, ex-
perienced teachers took the place of many of the monitors, more
costly apparatus was purchased, the grade of instruction was
advanced, and the schools were offered to the public as institu-
tions where the children of all classes might meet on common
ground, and engage in the strife for honor and reward.

But social laws cannot always be overborne, even by the most
enlightened and philanthropic adaptations. In proportion as the
comfortably-clad and cleanly and polished pupil makes his ap-
pearance, the opposite class shrink from the contact. Social
affinities are too strong, and social distinctions are too marked.
Contrasts are too plainly seen. Although theories of popular
commingling may be very pretty exercises for the sycophant or
the demagogue, facts and truths of a stern and impressive sig-
nificance often laugh them to scorn, and the self-consciousness of
the poor, the abject, and the desponding, lead them to avoid
associations where the silent but not less powerful invidiousness
of social contrasts is so clearly displayed.

The progress of substitution, of which mention has been
made, has taken place to a large 'extent in the school system of
New York. Instead of confining itself to the instruction of the
children of the poor, the advances made raised them, in a meas-
ure, above the level of thousands who are too unfortunate and
too dependent, while the means which would support several
schools of lower grades were expended upon a single school.
The necessity of securing a system by which children of all
classes might meet on common ground, rendered it inevitable
that the schools should be advanced to such a rank as very soon
removed them beyond the level of thousands. The private pay
schools became fewer in number in proportion to the population,
and the number of uneducated children of the poor kept stead-

DEVELOPMENT. 603

ily increasing with the population. The statistics which were
viewed with so much interest and anxiety in 1825, when about
ten thousand children were estimated to be without instruction,
lost none of their significance in 1835, when it was reported that
there were twenty thousand untaught wanderers to be found in
the streets. Yet this mass grew, in the next decade, to thirty
thousand, and, in 1855, the estimates reported to the Board of
Education made the number of vagrant and uneducated children
reach the appalling figure of sixty thousand, in a resident popu-
lation of lesslhan seven hundred and fifty thousand.

"While this vast increase was going on with the steady accre-
tion of thousands annually added to the ranks of the children
of the school age, the system rolled up the amount of its expen-
ditures from the sum of $125,000, distributed by the Society, to
the $300,000 apportioned under the care of the Board of Edu-
cation ; and even this liberal fund was increased so rapidly, that
the last-named census of children who were non-attendants at
schools was contemporaneous with an outlay of over eight hun-
dred thousand dollars for the schools under the care of the Board
of Education. The modest and yet substantial houses of the
Public School Society were superseded by imposing edifices
erected at great cost, as well for the buildings as for their ap-
pointments. The grade of instruction had been so far advanced,
that, in place of the elementary training of early years, the
course comprised music, French, algebra, history, and other
studies, in the grammar schools, with a collegiate course in the
Free Academy, and schools for girls, in which select branches
are taught which had hitherto been reserved for the higher class
of institutes for young ladies. The system had been developed
into a noble educational scheme, but it had changed its channel,
and the stream flowed over a new bed, while it left a rapidly
augmenting number of the poor stranded on the further shore,
or drifting down to be lost in the eddies of ignorance and vice.

As the outgrowth of circumstances which could not fail to
arrest the attention of the civilian and the reformer, a new order
of schools grew up, inspired by the same motives and covering
substantially the same ground as that so nobly occupied by the
founder of the Lancasterian system. They added, however, a
more liberal supply of material aid, together with an industrial
organization and scheme, which proved of eminent advantage.

604 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

" Industrial Schools " have become the nursery where benevolent
women of the first rank in society, as well as men of philanthro-
py, fortune, and learning, delight to devote much of their time
in rescuing the poor and uneducated children from their almost
hopeless condition. Fifty years of development had resulted in
a more imperative demand for a simpler and better-adapted sys-
tem, of education for the children of the extreme poor. The
original work of the Society was similar to that of the Industrial
Schools of the present decade.

In the month of May, 1817, the treasurer of the Society
acknowledged the receipt of two hundred and fifty dollars from
the executor of Mrs. Mary McCrea, to be expended for the cloth-
ing of the children. The schools, during their early operation,
often suffered in attendance from the fact that the children were
not able to find garments suitable for the season, and donations
of clothing, shoes, hats, &c., were received by the trustees, for
distribution among the pupils. The ladies who assisted in the
care of the girls, taught sewing and needlework, and much labor
of a useful kind was performed by the pupils in repairing the
clothing sent as donations, or making up the goods contributed
for the purpose. In 1823, a regulation was adopted assigning
three afternoons in the week to sewing exercises.

ADMINISTRATION.

The system early adopted by the trustees, and continued
with a fidelity and diligence which were remarkable, called for a
constant supervision of the schools in all the departments of in-
struction, discipline, and economy. When the number of schools
had become sufficiently numerous, the committees on schools
were changed in their organization, and the trustees were divided
into " sections," who had the special care of their respective
schools during the year for which they were appointed. The
records attest the uniform fidelity with which this duty was per-
formed. The visits of the trustees to their several charges were
made at all hours, and without any notice whatever to the teach-
ers. The industry with which this part of the labor was per-
formed may be estimated from the fact that, during the year
ending May 1, 1840, the trustees made 11,844 visits to their
schools, and, during the following year, no less than 14,112 visits

ECONOMY. 605

were recorded on the books. The controlling principle in the
minds of these faithful officers, next to a sense of their duty as
" men who must give an account," was a consciousness that they
were invested with a grave and momentous trust, which made
them responsible to their fellow-citizens for the performance of
an honorable stewardship. The men who composed the Society,
with few, if any, exceptions, were not those who would abandon
their post of duty for trifling considerations, or yield passively to
the storms of prejudice or of opposition which, might be raised
around them for the overthrow of their institution. With a high
appreciation of the position they held as the founders of a sys-
tem of popular instruction designed for the tens of thousands of
youth, of a great metropolis, their endeavor was, with a single
purpose, to extend, advance, and ennoble it with each passing
year, in the hope that it would be rendered more massive and
more enduring by successive labors, until it should rest upon a
basis as broad as humanity -and as lasting as time.

ECONOMY.

A characteristic feature of the administration of the Society
was the strict economy practised in all the expenditures, whether
for teachers, buildings, fuel, or supplies. There is an economy
which is often a misnomer, and a blind and pernicious system of
penurious calculation may often be productive of more evil than
a too liberal outlay. The law universally applied to all the dis-
bursements of the institution was that of a jealous caution over
the expenditures. The question invariably asked was, how to
secure the greatest result from a given amount of means, and
how the benefits should be the most equally and widely distrib-
uted. Limited in resources, and with a pressure of demand from
every part of the city for the opportunities and facilities of ob-
taining instruction, the closest calculation was necessary ; and,
fortunately for the public interests, the school moneys were des-
tined to pass through the hands of men who felt that they were
under a high obligation to use them with as much prudence as
they would their own. No ambitious pretensions in order to
gain popular clamor in their favor, were needed ; no contracts
to be given to favorites who could exert a political influence ; no
relatives or friends who could submit estimates which were to

606 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

benefit the officers who superintended the work, ever seemed to
offer inducements to the trustees to overstep the prudence of
men who knew how to conduct their own affairs many of
whom, while they were enriching the city with their labors in
the department of public instruction, were also quietly building
their own fortunes by the very virtues and habits which enabled
them to mould and develop the system which they adorned.

TEACHERS.
\

In reviewing the history of the Society, the policy pursued

toward its teachers may be condemned by many who do not suf-
ficiently reflect upon its position and its resources. The grade,
also, of the schools may, perhaps, be overlooked. Yet it will be
seen that, when the resources permitted, the trustees were not
insensible to the claims which competent teachers had upon their
consideration. The qualifications of teachers, and their duties,
are inevitably to be regarded, and a teacher of minor qualifica-
tions cannot reasonably expect the same compensation as one
who finds all his scholarship and talent called into requisition for
the training of advanced pupils. A salary of $600 or $800, and
rent, advanced to $800 or $900, or $1,000, was not by any means
a contemptible sum, compared even with the larger salaries of
the principals of Boston and New York schools at the present
time. The amount ordered to be guaranteed to " a teacher from
England completely competent to teach on the Lancasterian
plan," was $800, his expenses to this country to be paid by the
Society. Shepherd Johnson, a former monitor, was appointed
teacher of No. 3, at its opening in 1818, at a salary of $500,
which was increased, during the same year, to $800. In 1820
and 1821, the teachers of the schools made application for an
advance of their rate of compensation, which was denied ; but,
" in order to equalize the same, the salary of Shepherd Johnson
was raised to $900." In 1822, Charles Picton, the English
teacher who was duly accredited by the Society in England, and
who had, by several years of faithful service, earned the respect
and confidence of the Society and the public, had an allowance
of $950. A committee on the question of salaries reported a
scheme, at the same time, based upon the attendance, so that the
compensation should be partly dependent upon the industry and

TEACHEE8. 607

efficiency of the teachers themselves. The plan proposed that
$2 per scholar should be paid for two hundred scholars or less ;
over two hundred and under six hundred, $1.50 in addition ; over
six hundred, $1 in addition. By this scale, a school of three
hundred pupils would give the teacher a compensation of $550 ;
five hundred pupils, $850, &c. The schools were thus rated :

No. 1, 500 pupils, . . ' . $850 salary.

" 2, 400 . ..... 700 "

" 3, 600 " . 1,000 "

1,000 "

" 4, 600

The salary of Eunice Dean, one of the female teachers, was
raised from $250 to $300 per annum.

In 1827, the by-laws were altered so as to limit the salaries to
the following rates :

Male teachers, per annum, . ."

" monitors general, per annum, . . . 200

" assistants, " . ; ! v 100

Female teachers, " . j, .. 350

" monitors general, " . . . 100

" assistants, " ' .,, . . 50

The office of assistant teacher had been abolished in 1817.
The system was very materially changed and improved under
the important law of 1832. Assistant teachers were to be ap-
pointed, and two sections were adopted as a part of the new code
of by-laws, fixing the rates of salaries as follows :

The salary of the principal teacher in the boys' schools shall not exceed
$1,000 ; that of the assistant teacher shall not exceed $600 ; that of the
monitor general shall not exceed $200 ; that of the assistant monitor gen-
eral shall not exceed $100.

The salary of the mistress in the female school shall not exceed $400 ;
that of the assistant shall not exceed $250 ; that of the monitors general
shall not exceed $100 ; that of the assistant monitors general shall not
exceed $50.

The maximum for the assistant teachers was adopted at $500,
but, in 1835, the teachers applied for an increase to $600, and it
was made discretionary with the Executive Committee to in-
crease the salary of assistants to that sum in cases where they
deemed it was deserved.

608 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

In 1836, the following tariff was adopted :

Principal teachers, male department, not to exceed . $1,000

Assistants, . . . ... 700

Passed monitor, ....... 400

First " . . . . . 200

Second " . . -. . . . 100

Teachers in the female departments not to exceed . 450

Assistants, . . . .. . . 800

First monitor, . . , . . . '" 125

Second " . . . . ' . . . 100

Teachers of primary departments not to exceed . 275
Assistants, . . ^^ . . .160

First monitor, . . . . . 100

Second " ... . . . . 75

Teachers of primary schools not to exceed . . 200

and $2.50 for each child over sixty, but the additional

number so allowed for not to exceed thirty.

First monitors of primary schools not to exceed . 100

In 1842, the Board of Education was established, and the
trustees of the ward schools were enabled to pay salaries much
larger than those paid by the Society. This not only induced a
spirit of competition and jealousy between the wards themselves,
but between the teachers employed by the Society and those in
the ward schools. It also tended materially to injure the public
schools by the frequent withdrawal of long-experienced teachers
from the service of the Society, attracted by the increased
emoluments offered by the ward officers. This evil became so
prominent, that, in 1851, a committee was appointed to report
upon the whole subject, and Messrs. G. T. Trimble, A. P. Hal-
sey, C. E. Pierson, L. W. Stevens, B. Ellis, "W. K. Yermilye,
"W. II. Neilson, J. B. Collins, and John Davenport, were en-
trusted with the consideration of all questions relating to the
salaries of teachers. The committee reported a scale substan-
tially the same, but providing that, after two years of acceptable
service, the assistant male teachers should receive $750 per an-
num. The other recommendations of the report were of the
same character, making a period of faithful service of two or
three years the basis of an increase of compensation. This scale
of salaries was continued during the existence of the Society.

U F L W. 5 ETON

MONITOKS. 609

MONITORS.

The success of the Lancastrian system being dependent, in a
very great degree, upon the ability and character of the several
monitors, who formed an indispensable part of the scheme, atten-
tion was early given to th'e training and preparation of the most
promising of the pupils, in order to prepare them for the special
work of teaching according to the most approved methods of the
plan of mutual instruction. While there was but one school in
existence, the number of monitors was too small to warrant any
specified classification for that purpose. But when the number
was increased, and a considerable body of monitors was em-
ployed in the schools, arrangements were made for their instruc-
tion. Monitors had been indentured as " apprentices " to the
Society, in all practicable cases, and were expected to remain
until they were twenty-one years of age, and then to receive a
certificate of qualification which should secure them positions in
any city in the Union.

The trustees of the Society believed that they were introduc-
ing to the people of the United States a system of great value,
specially adapted to the necessities of the underlying masses of
society. Whatever, therefore, could increase its efficiency and
multiply its powers, was adopted as fast as circumstances or
means allowed.

The course adopted for the training of monitors is treated of
in the chapter devoted to the high school and normal school, and
only a brief summary will here be given of the general regula-
tions adopted for their employment and supervision.

The house in which the school was originally established liar-
ing become unfit for longer use, a commodious building was erect-
ed on Tryon Row, at the east side of the Park, since changed by
the extension of Centre street. The school was opened for the
reception of scholars on the 12th of December, 1809, soon after
which William McAlpin and Shepherd Johnson, who subse-
quently distinguished himself as the first teacher of No. 3, and
more recently as a teacher of the New York High School, were
indentured to the Society. This usage waa continued in every
practicable case.

In 1818, a Committee on Monitors re-ported a form of inden-
ture, which would probably have been adopted by the- Society,
30

610 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

but a question arising as to the power of the board to hold
apprentices, the subject was recommitted, with power to memo-
rialize the Legislature to grant the requisite authority. The
monitors general had been boarded and clothed by the Society,
being, at the time of their apprenticeship, inmates of the family
of the teacher of the school in which they were employed.
Daring the year 1819, a committee upon retrenchment recom-
mended that the monitors be allowed a compensation of $100
a year, and reside with their parents a recommendation which
was adopted by the board. Some objection arose against the
change, and it was waived ; but, in 1820, a resolution was
adopted reducing the allowance to the teachers for the board of
the monitors general to $2.50 per week. The expenses of each
of these lads amounting to about $200 per annum, it was deemed
a measure of economy to reduce the cost of such assistance, and,
in 1821, resolutions were adopted reducing the salary to $100
during the time of their service, and that steps be taken to secure
positions for them as teachers of Lancasterian schools, the Secre-
tary being directed to advertise in one newspaper in New York
City, and one in Albany, that three such teachers were prepared
to enter upon their duties. The School Committees were di-
rected to expend fifty cents per week in securing the services of
proper monitors.

In 1826, Jotham Wilson, the monitor general of No. 5,
applied for an increase of $100 to his salary. A committee was
appointed to consider the general subject of salaries of moni-
tors, who reported in favor of allowing $50 for the first year,
and an annual addition of $50, until it should reach a maximum
of $200 for males ; and $25 a year, with the annual addition of
$25, until the maximum of $100 for female monitors should be
reached. The Executive Committee were charged with discre-
tionary exercise of power in the case.

The Society had, however, been making material .advances
both in its own organization, its resources, and its system. Its
schools were larger, and eight capacious buildings were the
evidences of its labors and its prosperity. In order to keep pace
with these advantages, it was necessary to adopt a more enlarged
and liberal policy with the monitors general, who had become
of prime importance to the system. This was very fully per-
ceived by the Executive Committee, who applied, in May, 1827,

THE DEPOSITORY. Cll

for authority to appoint two monitors general in each school at
a maximum of $300 for males, and $200 for females, to which
proposition the Board of Trustees gave an unanimous consent.
In October of the same year, the by-haws were amended so as
to limit the maximum to $200 for males, and $100 for females.

The grades of salaries paid subsequently to this time have
been already presented in the preceding sections.

An increase of salaries of teachers and monitors naturally
followed the improvements made in the schools and the system
of instruction. The experience and improvement of the moni-
tors particularly, as they continued at their posts and became
more mature in age, all presented additional incentives to the
trustees to retain them in their own schools, and thus appro-
priate the scholarship and experience acquired by the young
teachers to the institution in which they had been trained. The
advantages of this system were exhibited in many instances in
which monitors subsequently attained high rank as teachers,
some of whom have held, or now hold, honorable positions as
professional and business men. The discipline submitted to by
the pupil was developed in the proficiency of the monitor, whose
habits and principles thus formed, became the basis of exalted
and enduring character.

THE DEPOSITORY.

One of the measures adopted by the board, having in view
the scrupulous and careful appropriation of the resources of the
Society, was that of establishing a depository for 'the systematic
supply of the schools with the text-books, stationery, and appa-
ratus which they severally required. A system of supplies had
been for many years in use, under the direction of the Supply
Committee, but, in 1832, at the time of the remodelling of the
school system, by-laws were adopted for the regular distribution
of the supplies to the schools. The depository was kept at
Public School No. 5, in Mott street, the purchases being made
by the Supply Committee, and distributed on the proper war-
rant by the agent. The depository was removed to the " Trus-
tees' Hall " on the completion .of that building, and the same
system was adopted on a much enlarged scale by the Board of
Education after the union of the two systems.

612 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

THE WORKSHOP.

In 1837, the number of schools fcad increased to seventeen,
including two schools for colored children, beside a large num-
ber of primary schools, many of which occupied hired premises.
The amount of work and materials annually required to keep
these buildings in repair, and to supply them with appropriate
apparatus, was very considerable, and suggested, as a measure
of economy not less than convenience, the employment of a
master workman, who should be known as the Superintendent
of Repairs, and who should keep a shop for the special work
of the schools. The measure was recommended by Samuel F.
Mott, Treasurer, who introduced a resolution at a meeting of
the board, February 3, 1837, referring the matter to the Prop-
erty Committee. A report approving the plan was submitted
at the August meeting following, and the committee were
authorized to have a workshop erected on the rear of the school
lot in Thompson street, and the Executive Committee was em-
powered to employ a competent foreman, who should be nomi-
nated by the Property Committee. AMNON McYEr was chosen
to fill the position thus created, and the excellence of the ap-
pointment has been fully proved by the faithful service of thirty
years, during which an extraordinary amount of work has been
done under his direction. Mr. McYey is the architect of the
Hall of the Board of Education, and of many of the largest
and most substantially built school-houses in the city.

REWARDS, LIBRARIES, ETC.

The influence of proper incentives upon the minds of the
scholars was early recognized by the teachers and trustees of
the Society, and systems of reward were adopted calculated to
stimulate the pupils to diligence and punctuality. Tickets, to
be distributed to the deserving, and returned when forfeited by
misdemeanor, were furnished to the teachers, who kept records
of the merits and demerits, and at the end of the week the
account was balanced, and the credit carried to the quarterly
account of the pupil. At the end of the quarter, premiums
were distributed to those who were entitled to receive them.
These premiums consisted of books, knives, thimbles, scissors,

EVENING SCHOOLS. 613

balls, tops, marbles, or other articles suitable to the tastes or
wants of the children. Difficulties attended the system, how-
ever, and it was partially Dispensed with and removed, and sub-
sequently modified into a system of credits which entitled the
pupils to receive premium certificates, which were redeemed at
certain periods by books proportioned to the number and merit
of the certificates.

It was deemed to be of great importance to the schools to
provide the children with a suitable class of books for reading
at home, not only for the general effect which such books would
have upon the children and the families they represented, but
as a higher and more estimable reward for good character as
pupils. As early as 1818, a committee on the state of the
schools submitted a report, recommending, among others, the
following resolution :

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to purchase and otherwise pro-
cure suitable books of voyages, travels, history, &c., to the amount of fifty
dollars for each school, for the purpose of forming libraries for the use of
the scholars. That the committee prepare rules for the regulation of the
libraries, and that such boys as may be selected by the master and approved
by the School Committee on account of their progress in learning and good
behavior, shall be admitted as members of the library, shall form a " CLASS
OP MERIT," and wear a badge. The number of this class in each school
shall not exceed fifty. All catechisms, or other books on religion that con-
tain sectarian principles, shall be excluded from the libraries, but such other
religious books as may be approved by the Board of Trustees shall be ad-
mitted.

Nathan Comstock, Benjamin Marshall, and John R. Murray
were appointed a Committee on Libraries, and they proceeded
promptly with the discharge of their duties. Each school was
provided with a library, and the several public schools subse-
quently established by the Society were provided with libraries
as a necessary part of their apparatus..

Measures were adopted, in 1837, to establish a teachers'
library, but, from the absence of interest on the part of the
teachers, it never became sufficiently extended or valuable to
take rank as an auxiliary in the system.

EVENING SCHOOLS.

One of the agencies which were devised for the purpose of
reaching the large class of children and youth who are debarred

614 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

from the opportunities of instruction in the day schools, was that
of evening schools. The first mention of these schools, under
the supervision of the Society, appeara in the records for the
year 1823, at which time a resolution was adopted, permitting
the teachers to hold evening schools in their respective build-
ings, on condition of furnishing their own fuel and lights, and
that they should repair whatever injuries might occur to the
buildings or furniture, and with the proviso that the insurance
would not thereby be rendered invalid. But this plan contem-
plated a compensation for instruction, which was a perquisite to
the teacher. The evening school system is intended to benefit
the industrial, and not the vagrant classes, although many have
attended the evening schools who should have been members of
day schools. An evening school for colored pupils had been
established many years before by the Manumission Society.

In 1832, an association of gentlemen, composed of W. D.
Coit, J. H. Taylor, and others, applied for the use of School No.
10, in Duane street, for a free evening school. Shortly after-
ward, Floyd Smith and others applied for permission to use
School No. 3 for similar purposes. Messrs. Joseph Brewstcr,
John H. Smith, Charles Durfec, and others applied for No. 5,
and J. H. Taylor for a room in No. 8, for gratuitous instruction
in the evening. These applications were granted, subject to the
supervision of the several " sections " having the charge of those
schools.

At the close of 1832, a committee on a reorganization of the
system reported a chapter to be incorporated in the new by-laws,
providing for the establishment of evening schools. The plan
was adopted in January, 1833, as a part of the new system, and
a resolution was passed relative to teachers and monitors, as fol-
lows:

Resolved, That, in future engagements with the male teachers, assistants,
and monitors, it be made a condition that their time and services, if required
by the Executive Committee, in attending the evening schools, shall be given
without additional pay.

The schools thus made a part of the scheme of instruction
were opened in October, 1833, and continued until March of the
following year. The number of pupils who attended the four
schools was 1,245. The annual report states that, although they
occasioned some inconvenience, and were more expensive than the

VAQEANCY VISITOR AND AGENT. 615

day schools, the good effects were such as to give promise of per-
manent utility. The result of the labors of the year following
was less encouraging, and, after an experiment of three or four
years, they were abandoned. The Board of Education subse-
quently adopted the system, under the care of an active commit-
tee, and the result was neither doubtful nor insignificant. The
failure of the attempt made by the Society was in consequence
of the unwillingness of the teachers to work five months in the
year, and sacrifice their evening repose, without extra compensa-
tion ; although the terms of agreement with the teachers and
monitors required them to perform these duties.

VAGRANCY. VISITOR AND AGENT,
j

Reference has been already made to the original object of the
Free-School Society, which was, to provide instruction for the
children of the poor, who either had no connection with any re-
ligious persuasion, or disregarded it where it existed. The ten-
dency among the members of this portion of the community is
to recklessness, vice, and indolence. Vagrancy, beggary, and
unlawful means of procuring a barely animal subsistence, form
the summit of the low plane of their mental or moral sphere.
To raise them from this condition is a work of humanity, as well
as of Christianity, and the means by which it can be effected are
ever worthy of consideration and experiment.

Observation and inquiry exhibited the fact that thousands of
children of the school age were vagrants, untaught and uncared-
for by their parents, who exhibited no concern for the attendance
of their offspring, and neglected to send them to school. To sup-
ply this want in part, and to exert a direct and leading influence
upon this class of the population, it was deemed advisable to
employ a gentleman who should fill the post of " visitor." Act-
ing in this capacity, his duties were, to visit the children and
parents at their homes, and use all the influence which could be
brought to bear upon them to secure their attendance and ad-
vancement. He was also to visit the families whose children
were allowed to become vagrants, and induce the parents to send
them to school. To this position, in the month of May, 1827,
Mr. SAMUEL WADDINGTON SETON was appointed, who continued
in the discharge of the same, or other responsible duties, during

616 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the existence of the Society, and was afterward appointed, by
the Board of Education, Assistant Superintendent of Common
Schools. No more fitting selection could have been made, the
temperament, sympathies, and habits of the gentleman chosen
being eminently calculated to make him useful in that sphere.
How well his duties were discharged, and with what lasting
power over thousands who personally knew him, no written
records will ever fully testify ; but they are inscribed in imper-
ishable influences which have made bright and honorable many
a son and daughter of destitution, who, but for him, would have
trodden a dangerous and darkened path to the grave.

In 1833, the office of " visitor " was abolished, and the duties
of Mr. Seton were defined by a new title, in which capacity he
had a general business supervision as " agent," being chiefly the
receipt and distribution of supplies. Mr. Seton was elected a
trustee in the year 1823, and was called to fill the post assigned
him, in consequence of his zeal, intelligence, and peculiar fitness
for the work. He continued to hold his office as trustee during
the existence of the Society. ,

The efforts made to counteract the evils of vagrancy and tru-
ancy, proved however, at that time, as they have since, in a
large degree abortive. These evils are not to be eradicated in a
community like that of New York, even if the work be possible,
by any other than the boldest and most persistent as well as far-
reaching means. In the twenty-fourth annual report (for 1829)
it is remarked that

The committee of the Common Council, from the result ol the census of
the schools, and the estimated population of the city, draw the appalling
inference that there are 20,000 children between the ages of five and fifteen
who attend no school whatever ; and if one third be deducted from this
number as having probably left school previous to the age of fifteen, and
3,000 more for any possible error in the data on -which the calculation is
founded, we have still the enormous number of 10,000 who are growing up
in entire ignorance.

The twenty-seventh annual report (1832), making a reference
to the fact that a committee had been sent to Boston to visit the
schools of that city, alludes to vagrant children in the following
language :

Truantship in that city is deemed a criminal offence in children, and

VAGRANCY VISITOR AND AGENT. 617

those who cannot be reclaimed are taken from their parents by the police,
and placed in an institution called the " School of Reformation," corre-
sponding, in many respects, with our House of Refuge : from which they
are bound out by the competent authority, without again returning to their
parents. As a necessary consequence, the percentage of absentees, or the
difference between the number of children on register and the actual attend-
ance, is less in the Boston public schools than those of New York. This
subject has, during the past as in former years, received the attention of the
trustees, and will probably be brought before the next board, in connection
with the general subject ojf non-attendance at any school, which exists to
such an alarming extent in this city. Efforts have been made by the pres-
ent board to obtain, in some way, the active cooperation of the city govern-
ment in applying a remedy to this extensive evil. Every political compact
supposes a surrender of some individual rights for the general good. In a
Government like ours, " founded on the principle that the only true sov-
ereignty is the will of the people," universal education is acknowledged by
all to be, not only of the first importance, but necessary to the permanency
of our free institutions. If, then, persons are found so reckless of the best
interests of their children, and so indifferent to the public good, as to with-
hold from them that instruction without which they cannot beneficially dis-
charge those civil and political duties which devolve on them in after-life, it
becomes a serious and important question whether so much of the natural
right of controlling their children may not be alienated as is necessary to
qualify them for usefulness, and render them safe and consistent members of
the political body. The expediency of such a measure would be confined
pretty much perhaps entirely to large seaport towns, and, in its practical
operation, would be found to affect but few native citizens.

The Executive Committee held the questions of vagrancy re-
form under discussion during the year 1831, and, in November,
a proposition was submitted from that committee, to the effect
that application be made to the Corporation, and also to benevo-
lent societies, that, in dispensing charities to the poor, it be made
a condition of such relief that their children be sent to school.
The proposition was referred back to the committee, with power.
A memorial was accordingly addressed to the Common Council,
inviting the attention of that body to the condition of the va-
grant children, and praying for the passage of some regulations
which might abate the evil. The Common Council took the
subject into consideration, and passed the following resolutions :

Resolved, That the trustees of the Public School Society and the Com-
missioners of the Almshouse be requested to make it known to parents and
all persons, whether emigrants or otherwise, having children in charge capa-
ble of receiving instruction, and being between the ages of five and twelve

618 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

years, that, unless said parents and persons do or shall send such children to
some public or other daily school, for such time in each year as the trustees
of the Public School Society may from time to time designate, that all such
persons must consider themselves without the pale of public charities, and
not entitled, in case of misfortune, to receive public favor.

ResolccJ, That the trustees of the Public School Society and the Com-
missioners of the Almshouse are hereby authorized to take such steps as
they may deem expedient, from time to time, to give the necessary publicity
to the preceding resolution ; and the Commissioners of the Almshouse are
hereby requested to use such means as may be in their power and discretion
to carry the same into effect.

Adopted by the Board of Aldermen, April 23, 1832.

Adopted by the Board of Assistants, May 7, 1832.

J. MOHTON, Clerk.

These resolutions were laid before the trustees, and, on mo-
tion, twenty thousand copies, in a suitable handbill form, were
ordered to be printed and circulated.

In June, 1838, Joseph B. Collins offered the following reso-
lution for adoption by the Executive Committee :

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to prepare and submit to this
committee a project of a plan which may lead, through the aid of our Com-
mon Council and Legislature, to a more general attendance of the children
of the poor and laboring classes at school, and prevent the multitudes now
roaming through our streets from the continuance of a habit so destructive
to good morals.

The resolution was laid on the table, but, in September, was
taken up and adopted, and Joseph B. Collins, Charles Oakley,
Gulian C. Verplanck, Samuel F. Mott, S. Allen, and Robert C.
Cornell, were appointed to report upon the objects named.

In December following, the propositions of the committee
were laid before the board. The report is as follows :

In contemplating the subject assigned to them, the committee early be-
came sensible of the manifold difficulties of various character by which it is
surrounded. So great, indeed, did they appear, as almost to preclude the
hope of ever accomplishing any essential reform of the existing deplorable
evils. Still they cannot but earnestly desire that the few and scanty lights
their labors may throw upon the subject may lead, in time, through the con-
tinuous efforts of the Public School Society, to the fulfilment of the design
contemplated by the resolution. The chief obstacles to be overcome would
seem to be of two classes moral and physical. The moral embrace indif-
ference and -viciousness of both parents and children ; the first arising, in

VAGRANCY. 619

part at least, to the parents, from themselves never having enjoyed the bene-
fits of education ; the latter, from their intemperance and indolence.

Among children, a disinclination to go to school grows out of a dislike
of control on the one hand, and, on the other, from the allurements of places
of amusement of various descriptions theatres, circuses, gambling-houses,
and dram-shops.

The physical impediments result from the extreme poverty of parents,
who, for want of means, are unable to provide suitable clothing for their
children to attend school in, or need, or conceive they need, their assistance
in procuring a livelihood for the family.

These impediments must be surmounted, before we can hope to attain
the end in view.

From the high character long enjoyed by the States of Connecticut and
Massachusetts in regard to the universality of education among their citi-
zens, the committee were naturally led to seek in the school systems and
statistics of those States the object of their inquiry. They therefore opened
a correspondence with a gentleman in each, of great practical experience, a
thorough knowledge of the subject, and of untiring zeal in the cause of
education and of moral improvement among the people. From Connect!
cut, the committee learned the existence of a statutory provision, applicable,
in a degree to our wants, but, at the same time, were informed that it is
rarely enforced in practice. An abstract (a) is annexed. Could enactments
of a similar character be acted upon in our community, doubtless great good
would result ; but the committee are not sanguine in the belief that the
morbidly excitable sensitiveness of our laboring classes would permit a scru-
tiny of so inquisitorial a character.

An approximation to it may, however, arise under the arrangements the
committee may propose, connected with the establishment of a Farm or
Manual Labor School, under the management of a society to be especially
organized for this object.

In closing the report the committee submitted the following
plans :

1st. A committee of five members, to be designated the Committee on
Neglected, Vagrant, and Unfortunate Children, shall be appointed by the
Executive Committee, whose duty it shall be to examine and nominate to
the Executive Committee three persons or more, to act as district visitors ;
to instruct and receive reports from such visitors ; and, in general, to have
a supervision of all matters arising under such visitations. The visitors
shall receive a salary not exceeding $ per annum.

The general duty of such visitors shall be to visit the districts around
Public Schools No. 8, 1, 5, and 10, and the primaries connected therewith,
look out for pupils, and encourage parents to enforce a more regular and
general attendance of their children at school. The visitors may also be
required to examine and ascertain what neighborhoods are now most in
need of additiona\ primary schools, which, with any other useful and rele-

620 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

vant matters, they shall report to said committee, to be, in their discretion,
brought before the Executive Committee.

2d. The Public School Society shall endeavor to procure the aid of our
city government in the following measures, viz. :

1. A renewal and frequent publication, by handbills and otherwise, of a
resolution of the Common Council in 1832 (?/).

2. The passage of a resolution calling upon all benevolent societies re-
ceiving aid from our city treasury, to use efficient means to promote the
sending to school of all the children of families assisted by them, and re-
quiring a report of the means used, and extent of their efforts.

To procure the enactment of a modification of the laws respecting edu-
cation now existing in Connecticut, subjecting the stubborn and vicious
minor to his being committed to a manual labor school or asylum, for moral
reformation, to be established ; and, finally,

The founding, under their own management, or that of a society to be
organized for that purpose, of a manual labor school, in an insular situation,
to which refractory children may be sent at the request of their parents,- 01
under the law the passage of which they now ask for.

The committee are aware that, among the class of children they hope to
reach, there are not a few who are kept from school by insufficiency of suit-
able clothing ; they trust, however, that, on the report of such cases by our
visitors, means may be found, through our city authorities and benevolent
societies, to remove this impediment (c).

The ability of even young children to contribute in some degree to the
support of the family, impresses upon the committee the belief that the
establishment of departments in our primary, schools to which infants of a
very early age, say two and a half to three years, might be admitted, would
be highly beneficial, and would meet with less objection than any other from
the most indifferent parent, since, at so young a period, they may be said to
be only a burden to their parents, incapable of earning or picking up any
thing ; and, on the other hand, they are yet in more controllable moral con-
dition than even at a comparatively but little farther advanced period of
life. Parents would soon participate in the benefits of the discipline of our
schools in the improved docility of their children. . . .

(a.) Laws of Connecticut. Parents and guardians required by statute to
have their children taught to read, write, and cipher as far as the four rules
of arithmetic. Selectmen shall inspect the conduct of the heads of families,
and, if any neglect compliance with the above, may admonish them ; which,
if they neglect, they shall take charge of, and bind out, children of such
parents. When children, minors, are stubborn", and refuse to obey the requi-
sition of their parents, they may be committed to the county jail for thirty
days.

(ft.) See resolutions of Common Council, ante, page 618.

(c.) Revised Statutes of New York. BEGOABS AND VAGRANTS. Any child
found begging may, on proof, be committed to any place provided for the
support of the poor ; there to be detained, employed, and instructed in use-

VAGRANCY. 621

ful labor, until discharged by the Superintendent of the Poor, or bound out
by the Commissioners of the Almshouse.

The report was adopted, and referred to the Executive Com-
mittee for their action and the memorial to the Common Coun-
cil was ordered to be engrossed and transmitted to that body.
Owing to the overshadowing importance of the controversies which
arose soon afterward, and the comprehensiveness of the plans
themselves, the committee were prevented from the accomplish-
ment of any material work as contemplated by the scheme, and
it is therefore unnecessary to prolong the review of the proceed-
ings in this important project any further than to give the language
of the thirty-fifth annual report (1840), in which the result is thus
presented :

Originally instituted for the exclusive benefit of the neglected poor, it
has ever been a subject of prominent interest with the Board of Trustees to
promote, by such means as lay within their power, the attendance of the
children of that class at their schools. In the early years of the institution,
the duty of visiting parents was occasionally enjoined upon the trustees ;
subsequently, it was more especially performed by a competent and faithful
agent, who devoted almost his entire time to this object. The rapid in-
crease of the schools since their being thrown open to all classes having
required the daily attention of the agent, the duty of visiting parents has
ceased to be a distinct portion of his engagements. It was hoped that the
great increase in the number, and the notoriety of the schoolSj would suffi-
ciently attract the attention of parents, and render a special visitation any
longer unnecessary. It soon, however, became evident that the criminal
indifference of many parents to the welfare of their children was such, that
some extraordinary effort was necessary to bring their offspring within our
walls. Various expedients were devised, with very limited success. Per-
sonal application, aided by kind entreaty, and accompanied by a judicious
and well-timed explanation of the benefits of early culture, offering the most
promising means of accomplishing the object aimed at, the trustees, at the
commencement of 'the past year, engaged the services of several intelligent
and faithful visitors for that purpose ; and it is gratifying to the board to
be able to state that, although the success of the visitors has fallen short of
the desired results, yet that they have probably been the means of inducing
some hundreds of children to attend our schools, who, but for their agency,
would have remained mere vagrants in our streets. The trustees have felt
so far encouraged by the trial, as to reengage the services of the visitors, as
well as to add to their number.

The trustees regret that their applications to the Corporation for com-
pulsory enactments, which might convert the poor vagrant children who
throng our streets and wharves into happy public school scholars, have been

622 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

unsuccessful ; but they indulge a hope that though, at first view, such meas-
ures may appear to be adverse to our political institutions, an examination
of the subject will show that the good of the community requires that exer-
cise of authority, and that it will yet be deemed expedient.

Whatever of partial and temporary advantage may have
arisen from the measures adopted by the Society, the fact still
remained evident, at the close of every year, that the number of
neglected and uninstructed children was augmenting in a ratio
equal to that of the population of the city, if, indeed, it did not
exceed it. In the face of certain social laws and proclivities,
embarrassing and difficult to the philosopher, and alarming to
the philanthropist and the civilian, all compulsory and reforma-
tory measures seem to be defied by this progression in juvenile
delinquency and immorality. It must be left for perhaps an-
other age to develop the effective remedy.

In addition to the labors of the agent and visitor of the Soci-
ety, the trustees called into requisition the aid of the visitors of
the American Tract Society, whose regular monthly visits, in the
distribution of tracts, were calculated to exert a valuable influ-
ence. Many parents were, by these fi-iendly advisors, made
acquainted with the character of the schools ; and although the
results fell far short of the necessities of the case, many pupils
were added to the rolls.

FREE AND PAY SYSTEMS.

Great systems of popular education require long periods for
their development, and the lapse of time and variations of cir-
cumstances call for experiments which are sometimes followed
by important results. The establishment of free schools in the
city of New York was itself experimental, and the benefits
which were successively reaped every year strengthened the zeal
and hopes of its friends. Progress, therefore, became early the
aim of the Society, and it was never lost or forgotten.

The schools grew so much in the public esteem, and, their
numbers having increased by the addition of several large and
substantial buildings, it became an object of desire with many
respectable citizens that their children should enjoy the advan-
tages of these institutions. But an impediment existed in the
fact that they were " free " or " charity " schools a distinction

FREE AND PAY SYSTEMS.

that implied a condition of dependence and necessity on the part
of those who were instructed in them. This was obnoxious to
many who were satisfied with the schools, yet felt that there was
a caste classification which would, in a measure, degrade their
social position. To remove this difficulty, it was proposed that
such regulations should be made as would secure the admission
of both pay and free scholars. The subject was first introduced
at a meeting of the Board of Trustees held July 4, 1823. The
following minute records the action in reference to this change
of system :

It being stated that some dissatisfaction exists among the middle classes
of our citizens on account of their not partaking of the benefit of the com-
mon school fund, and on a suggestion that advantage would arise from our
opening our schools for the children of all ranks, and receiving a small com-
pensation for their education, the subject was referred to the consideration
of Isaac Collins, H. Ketchum, Robert F. Mott, R. C. Cornell, and John R.
Hurd.

The committee submitted a report in January following, but
the change proposed was deemed of so much importance, that it
was laid on the table, to be considered after a month's notice to
that effect. At the same time, the exciting questions growing
out of the proceedings relative to the Baptist schools were pend-
ing, and the attention of the Society was called to the legislation '
necessary to remedy the evils of the law giving special privileges
to those schools. That law having been amended, and a power-
ful and successful appeal having been made to the Legislature
and Corporation of the city, the amplified resources placed at the
disposal of the Society enabled them to project great improve-
ments, as well as an expansion of their system.

Tlie committee to which the consideration and protection of
the interests of the Society had been committed in reference to
the said law, were also instructed to report a plan for a reorgani-
zation of the system ; and, after a careful examination, a report
was submitted which covered the whole ground. It was adopt-
ed, and its recommendations were, with little modification, em-
braced in the new scheme ; and, being an exposition of practical
plans and results, as well as the groundwork for the experiment
of the pay system, the reader is referred to Chapter IV., where
it may be found.

On the passage of the law of 1826, a committee of five was

624 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

appointed to revise the by-laws of the Society, in conformity
with the recent enactment. The committee made a report, in
which they recommended a scale of tuition fees, as follows : For
tuition in the 1st, 2d, and 3d classes, 25 cents per quarter ; for
the 4th, 5th, and 6th classes, 50 cents per quarter ; for the 7th,
8th, and 9th classes, $1 per quarter ; and for the higher studies,
$2 per quarter. Grouped by the studies pursued in the schools,
the first class were taught the alphabet, spelling, and writing on
slates, 25 cents ; the second grade continued these, with reading
and arithmetical tables ; the third grade continued the latter
studies, with writing on paper, and definitions ; while the fourth,
or highest grade, continued these, with the addition of grammar,
geography, and the use of maps and globes. In November of
the same year, Alderman Cowdrey introduced a resolution for
the appointment of a committee to ascertain whether any reduc-
tion in the number of scholars had taken place since the intro-
duction of the pay system, and, if so, the causes and the best
means for their removal. Najah Taylor, Joseph Grinnell, and
Samuel Cowdrey were appointed as that committee.

The report was submitted in February, 1827, from which it
appeared that a considerable decrease had taken place in the
number of pupils at the various schools. On April 30, 1826, the
number of pupils was 3,457, and on the 1st of November, 2,999,
making a decrease of 458. This difference was becoming great-
er at the time of the report. The tuition fee was assigned as an
important cause of the decline, which, together with the fact that
several large church schools were in operation, which opened
their doors to all classes, without distinction, on the free system,
had a tendency to withdraw scholars from the Society. The
figures are given as follows :

April 30. November 1.
School. No. of Pupils. Pay Scholars. Free. Total.

No. 1, 415 452 40 492

No. 2, Boys, 390 245 116 861

Girls, 319 210 95 395

No. 3, Boys, 515 293 114 407

Girls, 820 187 97 284

No. 4, Boys, 423 176 123 804

Girls, 324 177 112 230

No. 5, Boys, 506 820 59 379

Girls, 289 128 55 178

8,457 2,183 816 2,998

FEEE AND PAY SYSTEMS. 625

This result exhibited a loss of 458 in six months.

Another reason assigned by the committee was the introduc-
tion of the advanced studies, at $2 per quarter, which were pur-
sued by only a few in each school. In the girls' department of
No. 3, only one pupil was entered at $2 per quarter. The sys-
tem of separate classification for these pupils acted as a draw-
back on the other portions of the schools, and the fees received
by no means met the expenses. The result, as stated in the
report, showed that there was a great decrease in the number of
high-grade scholars, and that, during the first quarter, one hun-
dred and seven had paid $2 ; during the second quarter, thirty-
nine ; and during the third quarter, only thirteen remained in
all the schools at that price. The report observes :

Your committee believe that the true and legitimate system of our pub-
lic schools would be, to open our doors to all classes of children, free of any
expense ; and the only branches that should be taught in them, should be
such as have before been designated, viz. : reading, spelling, writing, and
arithmetic.

The committee recommended that the maximum of the tui-
tion fees be reduced to $1 per quarter, and that the higher
branches be considered as the reward of merit in those case?
where taught.

The several recommendations of the committee were consid-
ered from time to time, and then laid on the table for the action
of the new Board of Trustees. But no action was had upon the
matter, and the system, as originated, was destined to have a
longer experiment.

During the following year (1828), the subject was renewed,
upon a report being made from the Executive Committee, in
which it was strongly urged that the schools should be made free
to all classes, and be so far advanced in their grade as to invite
children of the more favored ranks in society, and, by an addi-
tion to the revenues of the common school system, the Society
would be warranted in the expenditures which such an expan-
sion would require. The committee recommended the publica-
tion of an address to the people, and the circulation of petitions
for the assessment of half a mill on the dollar for common school
purposes. The resolutions were adopted, and Robert Sedgwick,
Joseph B. Collins, and James I. Eoosevelt, Jr., were appointed
40

626 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the committee. At a subsequent meeting, R. C. Cornell, S.
Cowdrey, and Lindley Murray were added to the number.

In November, 1828, the returns from the several schools hav-
ing shown a very great decrease in the amount of tuition fees,
the Finance Committee was directed to report upon the facts.

In August, 1829, the committee submitted a report setting
forth the operation of the system. Many parents paid, at first,
as an entrance fee, but without intending to continue. Others
insisted on being recorded as pay scholars, promising to pay at
some future time, but neglected to fulfil the engagement. Many
were unable, and a large class insisted on the fact that the schools
were supported by the public, and that they had a right to the
advantages without charge, even when they were able. The
committee recommended a strict adherence to the by-laws in
reference to the tuition fees. The report was laid on the table.

In 1831, the Treasurer, Samuel F. Mott, called the attention
of the board to the diminution in the fees from pupils, and the
matter was referred to the Executive Committee. The report
which was made by the committee in the month of May, con-
tinned the previous experience, and exhibited the fact that
parents would enter their children as pay scholars, and, having
fallen in arrears for two or three quarters, would send their chil-
dren to other schools, to repeat the same process. The report
recommended a maximum of $1 per quarter, and the payment
to be entirely optional with the parents. The by-laws were
altered in accordance with the suggestions of the committee,
and an experiment of the voluntary system of payment was
entered upon. The result is seen in the report of the Treasurer
for the quarter ending February 1st, 1832, in which the amount
received for tuition fees was stated to be $103.91. The recent
enactments of the Legislature, by which the income of the
Society was much increased, together with the fact that the
pay system was deemed by some to be a compulsory method of
making the people pay twice for their schools, combined with
the pittance from that source, induced the Society to adopt the
recommendation of the Treasurer, and it was abolished by a
resolution of the board on the 3d of February, 1832, after a
trial of five years, during which every effort had been made to
remove objection, hold out inducements, and make the system
contribute to inspire self-respect and self-reliance in the minds

LOTTERIES. 627

of those who were chiefly benefited by the echools. The
numerous cases of deception, and the. excuses of every kind
which were resorted to in order to evade payment, and the ex-
pedients to obtain a place on the register as pay pupils, without
any intention of complying with the rules, were very mortifying
to the Society, who found so general a disregard of fine moral
sense among the people. It was, therefore, a source of relief to
be able to abolish the system, under the prosperous condition in
which the institution had been placed by the liberal endowment
of the Legislature.

LOTTERIES.

On the 13th of April, 1819, the Legislature of the State
passed a law, authorizing the Mayor of the city of ~New York
to fc grant licenses to dealers in lottery tickets, and declaring it
illegal to carry on the sale of tickets in lotteries, and other simi-
lar games of hazard, without such authority.- The sum to be
paid for licenses was $500 annually, and, in case of violation of
the statute, the penalty was fixed at $2,500 in certain cases,
and, at the discretion of the court, not' to exceed $2,000 for
other infractions of the law. The license tax was to be equally
divided between the Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf
and Dumb, and the Free School Society. The funds of the
Society were increased by the revenue thus obtained, the amount
received for 1820 being $1,000. The business of vending lottery
tickets was, however, much extended subsequently to this period,
so that, in 1825, the revenue derived from this source amounted
to $2,625, and, in 1826, to $3,625. The following year it reached
$3,875. A question having arisen, during the year 1826, as to
the constitutionality of the law respecting lotteries, Hon. PETER
A. JAY gave his opinion, fully sustaining the law, and the power
of the Society to recover penalties. On the reading of this
opinion in the meeting of the board, the Executive Committee
were directed to take such steps in reference to violations of the
statute as they deemed advisable.

In February, 1832, the President of the Institution for the
Deaf and Dumb communicated to the Board of Trustees the
fact that the directors of that institution had decided to make
an application to the Legislature for the appropriation of the

628 THE PDBLIO SCHOOL SOCIETY.

whole of the moneys received from the sale of licenses to lottery
dealers, and expressing the hope that no opposition to the meas-
ure would be made by the Society. The matter was referred to
a committee, consisting of J. II. Taylor, W. W. Chester, and
James I. Roosevelt, Jr., who had an interview with the officers
of the institution. They were directed by the resolution mak-
ing their appointment, to memorialize the Legislature in oppo-
sition to the application, but after a full examination of the
question, and after conferences with the directors, the committee
reported a resolution declaring it inexpedient to interfere with
the application. The matter was thus allowed to go by consent
to the Legislature, and the law was amended in compliance with
the application of the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, and
so continued until the whole system was overthrown.

A leading motive for this concurrence in the change arose
from the fact that there was an apparent inconsistency between
the objects of the Society and the revenues from gambling and
other vicious pursuits. This feature was always offensive to the
Society, and although the money thus raised was appropriated
to a noble moral use, the sanction thus given to a demoralizing
system by the enjoyment and expenditure of its revenues was
felt to be onerous when viewed in a strictly moral aspect. The
Society was, therefore, willing to yield that portion of income
with little reluctance, and leave the emoluments of vice to be
disbursed through other channels. The following language,
contained in the twenty-second annual report (1827), expresses
these views with distinctness and force, long enough anterior to
the relinquishment of the moneys to acquit the Society of any
charge of entertaining a sense of morality when it could not
control the circumstances :

COBPOEAL PUNISHMENT. 629

of the eviL The board exceedingly regret that an act on this subject,
which had passed both branches of the Legislature by large majorities, was
negatived by the Executive on the ground of its being unconstitutional.
Another bill was, however, subsequently introduced, passed, and has be-
come a law, and which, it is hoped, will prove efficacious in preventing that
branch of the evil arising from the sale of tickets in lotteries not authorized
by this State.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

To repress every thing which had a tendency to encourage
or foster a spirit of violence, was one of the prime objects of
the moral government of the schools, and it was believed by the
managers that this could be effected in no more efficient manner
than in the regulations with regard to corporal punishment. In
1823, a resolution was adopted that teachers dispense entirely
with the use of the rod ; but should persuasion and admonition
fail, then the scholars might be corrected by the use of a small
leather strap, applied to the hand, and if this should fail, after
suitable trial, the delinquent should be discharged from the
school by proclamation.

Several cases of alleged undue severity of punishment hav-
ing occurred, the teachers were invited to be present at a meet-
ing of the Board of Trustees, in September, 1825, at which time
they were admonished that the earnest desire of the Society
would be gratified by the entire abolition of bodily punishment,
and the exclusive use of moral means. Where, however, delin-
quents remained insensible to such admonitions, the moderate
use of the strap might be resorted to, but only when absolutely
necessary.

In 1838, Mr. C. B. Sherman, an assistant teacher in ~No. 8,
applied to the Executive Committee for authority to punish the
delinquents in his department a discretionary exercise not per-
mitted to assistants. The application was referred to a com-
mittee, who reported that only principals should be allowed to
use corporal punishment, and that assistants ought never to do
so, except in the absence of the principal, at which times the
assistant was necessarily invested with the powers of the supe-
rior teacher. Mr. Brinsmade offered two resolutions the first,
to grant a premium of one hundred dollars to a teacher who
should first show that a school can be successfully conducted

630 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

without corporal punishment ; the second resolution was in
favor of granting an additional premium of two hundred dollars
to the teacher who should conduct a school six months by moral
means, without any corporal or degrading punishment. The
resolutions and report were recommitted, but the final recom-
mendations confirmed the previous action of the board, in re-
stricting the right to punish to the principals. No premium
was ever offered to the teachers as contemplated by the resolu-
tions of Mr. Brinsmade.

A committee was appointed, in 18M, to report on the con-
dition and operations of the schools, and one of the topics which
engaged the attention of the committee was that of punish-
ments. The report on this subject recommended the following
resolution, which was adopted :

Hereafter no corporal punishment, by blows or otherwise, shall be in-
flicted on any pupil or pupils in presence of the school, or during school
hours, but after the school is dismissed, and then in the presence of the
assistant or monitors, or both, with such number of large scholars as may
be necessary for witnesses in case of complaint of any aggrieved party ;
and in no case shall such punishment be inflicted until after proper admo-
nition, parental in its character, be given, with a view of convincing the
delinquents of the impropriety of their conduct, and the necessity of re-
formation ; and no stripes or blows to be applied to the head, or any part
of the body other than the back near the shoulders.

The resolution granting a pecuniary reward to such teachers
as should conduct their schools satisfactorily to the trustees,
without the use of corporal punishment, having been rejected,
a resolution was adopted that a certificate, signed by the Presi-
dent and Secretary, setting forth the facts, should be given to
any teacher who should conduct his or her school twelve months
without using the rod or strap.

The predominant idea of the Society was that of PEACE, and
any thing that tended to call into exercise the animal passions,
either by violence of language, gesture, or discipline, \vas dis-
countenanced as being peculiarly hostile to the higher moral
influence which it was a special object to exert. The sympathy
of the moral feelings makes us imitative, and the passional
being so impulsive and spontaneous in their exhibitions, the true
secret of a teacher's success in moral government was deemed to
lie in the power of self-control. Irritation of feeling is quickly

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 631

betrayed in a teacher, and the frequent resort to bodily chas-
tisement tends to blunt the sensibility of the teacher himself.
Hence, all tendency to unnecessary parade or clamor in govern-
ment, even by the giving of the usual orders of the school in a
loud tone of voice, was considered objectionable. One sentence
of the manual is worthy of being printed in letters of gold, as
a rule for teachers, and should be indelibly written on the mind
of every preceptor of youth :

" A SILENT TEACHER MAKES A SILENT SCHOOL."

A paragraph from the manual of the public schools will
serve to show the solicitude with which the moral uses of disci-
pline were regarded, as also the suggestions offered for the gov-
ernment of the teachers :

In the regular orders of command, the teacher's voice should seldom, or
never, be heard. Approbation and displeasure, too, may very often be as
well expressed by looks and gestures as by words ; and sometimes better.
Such is the language of nature, and the medium of the first moral lessons
of infancy and therefore well understood. In giving orders, signs are
always preferable to words. A gentle tap on the desk with the forefinger,
a single and slight sound of the bell, or a slight clap of the hands, will
sooner command and fix attention than noise or blustering. Gentle sounds
act by sympathy on the nervous system, and enforce silence and order when
once the school is accustomed to such a mode of discipline. But noise is
never effectually prevented by noise ; or, if thus repressed, it is. only for the
moment, and it returns, as a spring recoils on the removal of a weight. " A
silent teacher makes a silent school."

Thus, by the proper exercise of firmness and decision, with the constant
practice of vigilance and mildness, the alternative of corporal punishment
may be very much, if not altogether avoided. Yet every precaution should
be taken, lest resort be had to objectionable substitutes for the use of the
rod ; some of which may be equally painful to the corporeal system some-
times more injurious, and even dangerous, and not unfrequently hurtful from
their moral effects and, therefore, some of them certainly improper to be
used. The sustaining of wearisome burdens, unnatural and long-continued
attitudes of restraint, public exposures, and badges of disgrace, are of this
class of punishments. Some of these, with judicious modifications of the
usual methods by which they are practised, and having due regard to their
moral effects on the delinquent, may be used, but only under careful limita-
tions, and with great circumspection and judgment ; for it requires a skilful,
discreet, and conscientious teacher to use them safely and to advantage.
It is ever to be borne in mind that they are best suited to little children,
and to boys ; and not adapted t*> the discipline of girls in whom a nice
sense of shame, and a delicate sensibility to reputation, should be carefully

632 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

cherished With them, such punishments tend to blunt those feelings which
it is the teacher's duty most carefully to cultivate as among the best safe-
guards to female character. Can punishments of this class, then, be safely
ventured upon, without extreme vigilance on the part of the teacher ? How
hazardous in its moral effects to leave a child publicly exposed, and liable
to be neglected by the teacher, till the current of feeling begins to turn !
Observe, that this ebbing again of the passions must be nicely watched.
It is only by a careful attention to this critical point, that punishment by
public exposure can become, as it sometimes does, a powerful means of dis-
cipline, especially in the training of little children. But they become worse
than useless, if not thus rightly used ; for, be it remembered, that, while the
teacher may be here and there, the tide of feeling may change, and the first
surge of its backward course excite pride, anger, and malevolence. And,
though this should be but in a small degree, every moment's continuance
of the punishment or exposure beyond the salutary point, inflicts a moral
injury that surpasses tenfold any possible good which the teacher can hope
to derive from it as a means of discipline. It also renders the punishment
altogether ineffectual for another occasion, thereby throwing the teacher
into a new perplexity for other substitutes for corporal punishment. It is
therefore plain, that, in resorting to such methods of discipline, untiring
vigilance alone is to be depended upon to give it any success. Now, there
is only one answer to be made to an inquiry that will here arise What,
then, isto'be done ? It is the old, the oft-repeated adage, " An ounce of pre-
vention is worth a pound of cure." Set vigilance, then, as the vanguard ;
send it out far and wide, backed and strengthened by the firm commands
of decision, while a spirit of kindness shall strengthen all the forces brought
into the discipline of a school, and how many embarrassments, difficulties,
and perplexities will flee away before the faithful and skilful teacher !

MUSIC.

The course of instruction adopted in the schools was for
many years rudimentary, and it was only after the increase of
means, and the .advance in the grade of the schools by long ex-
perience, that it was deemed opportune to introduce higher
studies. But the progress was steadily onward toward perfec-
tion of system and of instruction. In the course of studies, no
time was appropriated to musical exercises. The primary or
infant schools depended more or less upon singing lively school
songs, and moral lessons thus taught were fully appreciated.
But this method of refining the taste, as well as of cultivating
the mind and heart of the older pupils, had not been recognized
as expedient or useful. It was regarded as beiug merely an
accomplishment, and to this consideration was added the con-

MUSIC. 633

spicuous fact that the time spent in school by a majority of the
pupils, before being pressed into industrial employments, was
too short -to be expended in any other pursuit than the acquisi-
tion of knowledge. It is true, moreover, that an influential
portion of the trustees, as well as of the members of the So-
ciety, was composed of members of the Society of Friends, who
do not use music in their public worship, and among whom it
is not deemed essential. Whether this fact influenced in any
measure the policy of the Society, may be more a matter of
surmise than of just conclusion or of evidence.

The example and practice of schools in Europe, particularly
those of the continent, at the head of which stood the German
institutions, was suggestive of a similar experiment in the schools
of New York. Gentlemen of professional ability and zeal in
the cause of education, who felt the importance of the intro-
duction of music into the public schools, resolved to take the
initiative in the matter, and make an experiment for the pur-
pose of testing its utility.

Mr. DAKICS E. JONES commenced a course of lessons in
School No. 10, and after they had been continued for some time
with evident advantage, the " section " or committee for that
school reported the case to the board. The subject was referred
to a committee, consisting of Messrs. Theodore Dwight, Jr., J.
I. Eoosevelt, Jr., John Morrison, S. B. Childs, S. F. Mott, J.
R. Hurd, and A. R. Lawrence. After the expiration of several
months, the committee reported, in August, 1836, as follows :

Your committee, as soon after their appointment as was found con-
venient, was called together two or three times, at Public School-house No.
10, to hear the performances of the children in the two upper schools, who
had been gratuitously taught music by Mr. Jones. It was evident that they
had made great progress in an acquaintance with the principles of the sci-
ence, as well as in the practice of singing, considering the small amount of
time they had devoted to that branch. The teachers testified that favorable
effects had been produced by its introduction, both in order and study, and
that they were very desirous of having it continued.

The lessons in music had, at that time, been suspended about three
months, and the whole amount of time ever devoted to them was but twenty
hours, chiefly after the close of school, and scattered through a long period
of about six months.

Some difference of feeling is believed to exist in this Society in relation
to the introduction of vocal music into our schools ; and although no facts

634: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

have come under the knowledge of the committee calculated to show that
it has ever produced, or is likely to produce, any bad effects, if conducted
on a judicious plan, your committee do not wish to recommend any precipi-
tate measures which may cause disagreement. They feel it, however, to be
their duty to recommend that some measures should be resorted to to secure
a fair experiment upon this subject in such sections of our schools as are
disposed to give it encouragement. It is due to this branch of education to
state, that the example of Prussia, Holland, France, Switzerland, and other
foreign countries, is in favor of its introduction. In several of them vocal
music is taught as an important branch, and with evident and salutary
results. In different places in the United States where it has been properly
taught on modern principles, it has found numerous advocates and general
approbation. In Boston particularly, scientific and practical instruction in
music has become highly popular ; and, without mentioning other places, in
a number of very respectable schools in our city it has been introduced with
full success. In some of our own primary schools, music has long been
taught by rote, yet, with the disadvantages attending that method, it is
approved and continued.

Only two objections have been urged against its introduction into our
schools, so far as your committee are informed : 1st. That it would be ex-
pensive ; and 2d. That it would encroach upon school hours. But music
may be taught without exposure to either of these evils. Several teachers
have signified a readiness to teach a year or six months gratuitously, one
hour in each week (which, experience shows, is sufficient), and the lessons
may be restricted to hours not appropriated to the regular school exercises.
Several of our teachers are believed to be qualified to instruct their pupils
in this branch ; and these have expressed their willingness to perform the
task.

Your committee would, therefore, report for adoption the following reso-
lution :

Besolved, That the sections shall be at liberty to have vocal music taught
in their schools, provided it be done without expense to this Society, and
without encroaching on the regular school hours.

All which is respectfully submitted.

The report gave rise to a long and animated debate, which
was terminated by a motion to lay the whole subject on the
table. The motion prevailed, and the introduction of music into
the schools was indefinitely postponed.

In 1840, Mr. A. "W. GOFF submitted an application to the
Executive Committee for leave to introduce singing into the
schools, and for an appointment as instructor. The committee,
after consideration of the subject, directed the application to be
returned, with the explanation that music was not one of the
branches taught in the public schools.

MUSIC. 635

During the year 1843, the teacher of School No. 7 submitted
a proposition to the " section " of the trustees to whom the care
of that school was committed, for the employment of a teacher
of vocal music. The reasons urged were those of an experienced
and observant preceptor, who estimated the advantages of such
instruction, and the application was fully discussed at a meeting
of the section. At the conclusion of the debate, a resolution
was unanimously adopted adverse to the suggestion, and a re-
port made to the Board of Trustees, as follows :

On consideration (all the members of the section being present), it was
resolved, unanimously, to be inexpedient to adopt the suggestion or propo-
sition of the teacher of No. 7, relative to appointing a teacher of vocal
music.

The report of the section was approved by the Board of
Trustees, and the subject was thus once more reserved for future
action.

No effort was renewed with reference to the introduction of
vocal music into the schools for several years. But the advocates
of that measure were not satisfied with the position held by the
schools of the Society, and it was again deemed expedient to
press the question upon the attention of the board. According-
ly, in January, 1S4/T, the ward schools having been in existence
five years, a member of the board offered a resolution at a meet-
ing held on the 19th of that month, which reads as follows :

Resolved, That music be taught in the upper schools, and also in the nor-
mal schools, and that a competent number of teachers be employed at sala-
ries not exceeding two hundred dollars per annum.

On motion, the resolution was laid on the table, and there
remained as long as the table lasted, the proposition not being
again renewed during the existence of the Society.

In the minds of many, the action of the board in regard to
music will ever be considered as reprehensible, and unworthy of
the position held by the institution. But whatever may be the
views of others, supported by the very high consideration of
moral and intellectual refinement and cultivation, it must not be
forgotten that, while the board fully appreciated the services of
all who could in any way benefit the schools, they were not de-
sirous of expending considerable portions of a limited income,
disproportioned to the demands made upon the institution, in

636 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

incidentals, and were equally reluctant to accept permanently
valuable services for which no compensation could be made. In
addition to a sense of justice and honor in this respect, they
were, moreover, cautious of adopting measures which promised
to make them obnoxious to outside opposition. They had been,
for many years, jealously watched by parties ever on the alert to
detect weak points, errors in policy, carelessness in system, im-
providence in expenditure, or blunders in experiment. The
opposition of these parties would be strengthened by measures
on which any great diversity of views was entertained, and
every false step or premature undertaking would have been only
to furnish capital upon which antagonism might feed its spirit
of hostility. While other views might have been held, with
greater favor to the public sympathy than those which overruled
the propositions to introduce vocal music into the schools; the
reader of the history should guard against prejudices arising in
his mind, because circumstances and considerations of a peculiar
character, altogether independent of the merits of the question,
interposed a formidable barrier. It is sufficient to know that the
decision of the Board of Trustees was founded in conscientious
views of rigid adherence to that which, at the time, appeared to
be right and true.

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.

Men who regard the present life as being a preparatory stage
for an immortality of existence, and are prompted to labor for
the elevation of the lowly and the almost friendless classes of
society, are, in most cases, influenced by a deep conviction of
duty, immeasurably nobler than that of the clamorer for popular
favor, who has but his own aggrandizement in view, and looks
no higher than the ballot-box, and no lower than the means to
secure popular suffrage will require him to descend. The origi-
nators of the Free-School Society, and those who continued it to
its honorable close, were men of earnest convictions o moral
and religious responsibility, and they did not shrink from a con-
stant desire to promote the moral and religious welfare of the
objects of their care.

The questions which arose during the career of the Society
in regard to the religious character of its system, present, to say

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. * 637

the least, some very remarkable exhibitions of reas6ning. Its
opponents brought conflicting charges against it, which will be
found fully presented in the reports of the controversies relative
to the school fund. One charge was, that the Society was a
religious institution ; another, that it was sectarian ; another,
that it was infidel ; and another, that " it was favorable only to
the sectarianism of infidelity, and opposed to Christianity." A
brief exposition of the practice of the institution is therefore
essential in a history of its operations.

The members of the Society, as must be evident from the
nature of its organization, represented almost every religious
denomination, and, consequently, it would have been impossible
to have adopted a system of instruction in religious opinions or
creeds which would have been, in the strict meaning of the term,
" sectarian." Yet there are certain tenets and articles of faith
which are common to all men who have any religious opinions
whatever : such as the existence of the Deity, moral responsibil-
ity, the immortality of the soul, and the practice of all the moral
duties which are elevated above the mere idea of selfish advan-
tage as being more convenient or more to a man's own interests
than the indulgence of vice or crime. The maxim that " hon-
esty is the best policy," is good enough as a demonstrable fact r in
many cases of human experience, but it is a base and selfish
maxim at the best. It requires the higher motive and the higher
obligation of spiritual and religious convictions and responsibili-
ties. To denounce the inculcation of such principles in the
minds of the youth of our common schools as " sectarian," would
argue a strange menial vision on the part of one who holds each
and all of these same doctrines and opinions ; or, on the other
hand, a perversity of opposition which has only selfish ends for
its basis. The Society gave religious and moral instruction, but
it never descended to the level of " sectarianism."

The importance, however, of devoting a specified portion of
time to the religious training of the pupils, led to a demand for
some system upon which all denominations could unite, and a
regulation was adopted at an early period which afforded the
opportunity desired. The afternoon of every Tuesday was ap-
propriated to the instruction of the pupils in the catechisms of
the various churches to which they belonged. An association of
ladies was formed for the purpose, who met at the schools at the

638 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

appointed time to conduct these exercises. At the time of the
ninth annual report (1814), the number of children educated in
the peculiar tenets of the religious denominations represented
was as follows :

Presbyterians, ...... 271

Episcopalians, ...... 166

Methodists, ...... 172

Baptists, ...... 119

Dutch Reformed Church, . . . . 4f

Roman Catholics, ..... 9

The report adds :

In furtherance of the same interesting object, the children have been
required to assemble at their respective schools on the morning of every Sab-
bath, and proceed, under the care of a monitor, to such place of public wor-
ship as was designated by their parents or guardians. This requisition has
been regularly attended to by many, but the want of suitable clothing has
prevented others from complying with it. In cases where an attendance at
school previous 'to going to church is particularly inconvenient, liberty has
been given for the children to attend public worship in company with their
parents or guardians.

Early in the year 1819, it was deemed proper to print and
distribute an address to parents, from which the following ex-
tracts are made :

SEC. 8. You know that many evils grow out of idleness, and many more
out of the improper use of spirituous liquors ; that they are ruinous and
destructive to morals, and debase the human character below the lowest of
all created beings ; we therefore earnestly desire you may be watchful and
careful in this respect ; otherwise, in vain may we labor to promote the wel-
fare of your children.

SEC. 9. In domestic life, there are many virtues which are requisite in
order to promote the comfort and welfare of families. Temperance and
economy are indispensable, but without cleanliness your enjoyments as well
as your reputation will be impaired ; it is promotive of health and ought
not to be neglected. Parents can, perhaps, scarcely give a greater proof of
their care for their children than by keeping them clean and decent, espe-
cially when they are sent to school, where it is expected they will appear
with their hands, faces, and heads perfectly clean, and their clothing clean
and in good order. The appearance of children exhibits to every observing
mind the character of the mother.

MORAL AND KELIGIOUB INSTRUCTION. 639

we owe to our Creator ; it is of universal obligation, and you ought to be
good examples thereof. And believing, as we do, that the establishment of
what is called Sunday schools has been a blessing to many, and may prove
so to many more, we are desirous you may unite in the support of a plan so
well calculated to promote the religious duties of that day, which ought to
be appropriated to public worship, retirement, and other duties connected
with the improvement of the mind.

SEC. 11. Seeing, next to your own souls, your children, and those placed
under your care, are, or ought to be, the immediate objects of your constant
attention and diligent concern, you ought to omit no opportunity to instruct
them early in the principles of the Christian religion, in order to bring them,
in their youth, to a sense of the unspeakable love and infinite wisdom and
power of their Almighty Creator ; for good and early impressions on tender
minds often prove a lasting means of preserving them in a religious life even
to old age. May you, therefore, watch over them for good, and rule over
them in the fear of God, maintaining your authority in love ; and as very
much depends on the care and exemplary conduct of parents, and the judi-
cious management of children by tutors, we cannot too strongly recommend
to their serious consideration the importance of the subject, as one deeply
interesting to the welfare of the rising generation, and no less connected
with the best interests of civil and religious society.

SEC. 12. As the Holy Scriptures, or Bible, with which you ought all to
be furnished, contain a full account of things most surely to be believed,
and Divine commands most faithfully to be obeyed, and are said to make
" wise unto salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ," 2 Tim. iii. 15,
it is the duty of every Christian to be frequent and diligent in the reading
of them in their families, and in privately meditating on those sacred
records.

The address from which these passages are taken was signed
by DE WITT CLINTON, President, and the officers and members
of the Board of Trustees, among whom were John Murray, Jr.,
Thomas Eddy, Rensselaer Havens, Jacob Lorillard, Leonard
Bleecker, Col. Henry Rutgers, Najah Taylor, Henry Eckford,
John Pintard, and George T. Trimble, the last President of the
Society.

A committee was appointed to inquire and report upon the
state of the schools, and especially with reference to the attend-
ance of tfre pupils at public service on the Sabbath. In May,
the committee reported that there were 480 scholars in No. 1, of
whom 397 attended church regularly ; of 437 on the register of
No. 2, 335 were regular in their Sunday observances ; in No. 3,
of 333 on the register, 312 attended church. This supervision
over the moral and religious habits of their pupils was continued
by the Society, although the system of voluntary instruction by

640 THE PUBLIC BCHOOL SOCIETY.

catechism once a week was, after a time, discontinued, as well as
the special requirements in regard to public worship. The great
enlargement of the system of the Society, and its modification,
made regulations for the Sabbath unwieldy and inexpedient, if
not impracticable.

A resolution was adopted at the time of publishing the ad-
dress, requiring that the children should commit to memory,
each week, passages from tracts on spirituous liquors ; but the
resolution was reconsidered and rescinded at the meeting held
during the month of June following.

The daily reading of a portion of the Bible at the opening of
school had been practised from the organization of No. 1, and
was continued till the close of the Society's labors. In 1821, a
volume of " Scripture Lessons," which had been adopted in
England for the use of schools, was recommended to the board
for its adoption. It was referred to a committee, consisting of
John E. Hyde, Najah Taylor, Isaac Collins, and Leonard Bleeck-
er. Soon afterward, a catechism, " said to be free from sectarian
principles," was also submitted to the board, and referred to the
same committee. The report recommended the adoption of both
works, and the committee was directed to have the " Scripture
Lessons " stereotyped, and an edition of 1,000 copies printed and
bound for the use of the schools. Two thousand copies of the
catechism were purchased, and distributed among the pupils.

The twenty-second annual report (1827) contains the follow-
ing passage :

The trustees are aware of the importance of early religious instruction ;
and although the nature of their association and its true interests require
that none but such as is exclusively general and scriptural in its character
should be introduced into the schools under their charge, they require from
the teachers stated returns of the number of their scholars who attend a*
the various Sunday schools or places of worship on the Sabbath. The las*
reports from all the schools, except No. 8, show that, on the 1st of April, of
3,925 children on the registers, 2,463 belonged to Sunday schools, and of the
remainder, 1,142 were attendants at the various places of worship to which
their parents were attached, leaving but 326 unaccounted for, or who aro
negligent in this important duty.

The thirty-third annual report (1838) alludes to the same
topic, jn the following language :

The constitution of the Society, and public sentiment, wisely forbid the

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 643

introduction into these schools of any such religious instruction as shall
favor the peculiar views of any sect ; and the trustees endeavor so carefully
to guard them in this respect, as to give no just cause of complaint, leaving
this subject where it rightfully belongs to the parents and guardians of the
children. They wish, however, not to be understood as regarding religious
impressions in early youth as unimportant ; on the contrary, they desire to
do all which may with propriety be done to give a right direction to the
minds of the children entrusted to their care. Their schools are uniformly
opened with the reading of the Scriptures, and the class-books are such as
recognize and enforce the great and generally acknowledged principles of
Christianity.

Entertaining views like those expressed in the foregoing ex-
tracts, the Executive Committee, during the year 1838, appoint-
ed Joseph B. Collins, Samuel R. Childs, and William L. Stone
to report upon a manual for moral and religious instruction. In
compliance with the directions appointing them, the committee
made a report in January, 1839, to which the following resolu-
tions were appended :

Resolved, That the Trustees of the Public School Society hold in high
estimation the inculcation of correct elementary education among all classes
of children ; and, at the same time, they contend that it is of the greater
importance as regards their temporal and eternal welfare, that the youthful
mind should be imbued with sound moral and religious principles ; there-
fore,

Resolved, That, in their view, it is expedient to introduce into our public
and primary schools suitable books setting forth in concise terms the funda-
mental principles of the Christian religion, free from all sectarian bias, and
also those general and special articles of the moral code, upon which the
good order and welfare of society are based ; the substance of which shall
be committed to memory by the pupils.

On the reading of the report and resolutions, some discussion
ensued, and the following alteration of the by-laws was pro-
posed :

Special care must be taken to avoid any instruction of a sectarian char-
acter ; but the teachers shall embrace every favorable opportunity of incul-
cating the general truths of Christianity, and the primary importance of
practical religious and moral duty, as founded on the precepts of the Holy
Scriptures.

The! whole subject was laid on the table, and the accumula-
tion of other business occasioned a pause in the proceedings,
and, in the mean time, the renewal of the controversy in rela-

642 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

tion to the school fund, which was foreshadowed and opened
early in the following year (1840), suspended them altogether.

An illustration of the religious exercises recommended for
the use of the teachers at the opening of school will be found in
the following passages from the " MANUAL " prepared for the
primary departments by SAMUEL W. SETON, and approved and
published by order of the Board of Trustees during the year
1830. After the salutation of the teacher to the school, and ex-
pressing their dependence upon GOD for sparing them to meet
again, the exercise proceeds :

Teacher. How should we feel to our heavenly Father for these mercies ?

Answer. Truly thankful.

T. What example have we for this in the Holy Scriptures ?

A. Psalm c. 4, 5 : " Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name, for the
Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting, and Bis truth endureth to all gen-
erations."

T. Children, who is good ?

A. The Lord is good. .

T. To whom should we be thankful ?

A. Be thankful unto Him.

T. Whose name should we bless ?

A. Bless His name.

T. What is said, in this Psalm, of God's mercy ?

A. His mercy is everlasting.

T. What is said of God's truth ?

A. His truth endureth to all generations.

T. What is God's truth ?

A. His holy laws.

T. Psalm xxxiv. 11 : "Come, ye children, hearken unto me; I will teach
you the fear of the Lord." My dear children, tell me, who has watched
over you, and preserved your lives through the past night ?

A. Psalm iii. 5 : "I laid me down, and slept. I waked, for the Lord
sustained me."

T. Does God always see you ?

A. Proverbs xv. 3 : " The eyes of the Lord are in every place."

T. Does God know your very thoughts ?

A. Psalm cxxxix. 1, 2 : " O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known
me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising ; thou understand-
est my thoughts afar off."

T. Does God know all you do ?

A. Psalm cxxxix. 3 : " Thou compassest my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways."

T. Does God hear all you say ?

A. Psalm cxxxix, 4 : " For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O
Lord, thou knowest it altogether."

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 643

T. Does God require the young to serve Him ?

A. Ecclesiastes xii. 1 : " Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy
youth."

To vary the exercises, other lessons were provided, to be used
at the discretion of the teacher, one of which is as follows :

T. Is our life uncertain ?

A. Proverbs xxvii. 1 : " Boast not thyself of to-morrow ; for thou know-
est not what a day may bring forth."

T. What, then, should you ask of your heavenly Father ?

A. Psalm xc. 12 : " So teach us to number our days, that we may apply
our hearts unto wisdom."

T. How does God encourage you, in the Holy Scriptures, to love and
serve Him while you are young ?

A. Proverbs viii. 17 : " I love them that love me, and those that seek me
early shall find me."

These exercises were followed by the repetition of the Lord's
Prayer, and the singing or recitation of a hymn suitable for chil-
dren, commencing with the lines,

" I thank the goodness and the grace
Which on my birth have smiled,
And made me, in these Christian days,
A highly favored child."

The opening exercise for the youngest children, as they took
their places on the gallery in the morning, and also for all the
classes when they respectively used the gallery, was the follow-
ing:

Teacher. My dear children, the intention of this school is to teach you to
be good and useful in this world, that you may be happy in the world to
come. What is the intention of this school ?

T. We therefore first teach you to " remember your Creator in the days
of your youth." What do we first teach you ?

T. It is our duty to teach you this, because we find it written in the
Holy Bible. Why is it our duty to teach you this ?

T. The Holy Bible directs us to " train you up in the way you should
go." What good book directs us to train you up in the way you should go ?

T. Therefore, my children, you must obey your parents.

Scholar. I must obey my parents.

jP. You must obey your teachers.

8. I must obey my teachers.

T. You must never tell a lie.

8. I must never tell a lie.

21 You must never steal the smallest thing.

8. I must never steal the smallest thing.

644 THE PUBLTC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

jT. You must never swear.

8. I must never swear.

T. God will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.

8. God will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.

T. God always sees you. (Sloicly, and in a soft tone.)

S. God always sees me.

21 God hears all you say.

8. God hears all I say.

T. God knows all you do.

8. God knows all I do.

T. You should fear to offend Him, for He is most holy.

8. I should fear to offend Him, for He is most holy.

T. You should depart from evil, and learn to do well.

8. I should depart from evil, and learn to do well.

T. May all you, dear children, learn, while attending this school, to be
good and useful in this world.

8. May we all, while attending this school, learn to be good and useful
in this world.

T. And, with God's blessing, may you be happy in the world to come.

8. And, with God's blessing, may we be happy in the world to come.

The children then sing a hymn by Dr. WATTS, as follows :

" Let children that would fear the Lord

Hear what their teachers say,
With reverence meet their parents' word,
And with delight obey.

" Have we not heard what dreadful plagues

Are threatened by the Lord,
To him who breaks his father's laws,
And mocks his mother's word ?

" But those who worship God, and give

Their parents honor due,
Here on this earth they long shall live,
And live hereafter too."

It is unnecessary to multiply, in this place, quotations from
the records of the Society bearing upon the nature and extent
of the " religious " instruction sought to be inculcated in the
schools. They would present only repetitions of the views
already expressed, and these are deemed sufficiently clear and
extended to define the position held during the whole career of
the institution. For additional information, the reader is re-
ferred to the several memorials and papers of the Society which
will be found in other pages of this volume, and to the argu-
ments made on its behalf by its advocates and representatives.

NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS. 645

CHAPTER XVII.

NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS.

Monitorial Classes Organized Central School for Advanced Studies High Schools
Normal Schools Classical Institute Free Academy.

THE experience of all systems of education has shown the
necessity of assuring a supply of competent instructors. Where
the number of teachers properly qualified for their duties falls
below the demand, the deficiency must be supplied by those of
indifferent qualifications which is, at the best, a doubtful expe-
dient, and only a little better than the alternative of temporary
suspension in the routine of education until the want can be
met. The most perfect machinery of system and the most lib-
eral endowment of means cannot sufficiently compensate for the
absence of the skilful and efficient teacher. ,

The monitorial system in use in the schools of the Public
School Society made the training of properly qualified assistants
a matter of urgent necessity. The value of expert and well-
trained monitors, thoroughly familiarized with the Lancasterian
methods, led the Society at an early day to adopt a system of
indentures, by which the monitors were apprenticed to learn the
art of teaching. As an indispensable part of the means for fully
attaining these ends, it was deemed expedient to establish classes
for the instruction of the monitors in the schools. This course
was adopted in the year 1817, and was the initiative of the nor-
mal school system now existing under the Board of Education.

During the year 1826, a committee of three was appointed
for the purpose of reporting on a proposition to establish a
'"CENTRAL SCHOOL" for the instruction of tutors and monitors,
and for such advanced pupils of the schools as might deserve the
distinction.

The committee promptly reported upon the resolution re-
ferred to them, in which the various considerations were strongly

646 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

urged which should induce the Society to organize such a school.
The project of the committee confined the range of studies to
the English branches, with natural philosophy, bookkeeping,
mercantile education, geology, and chemistry. This course of
studies, it was thought, would be more practically valuable for
that period, and under the circumstances in which the Society
and its schools were then placed, than an institution in which a
classical course should be introduced. A liberal and extended
view was taken, in the report, of the positive and reflex advan-
tages and influence of such a school in the city, and an appro-
priation of $25,000 was named as being required to erect suit-
able buildings, and furnish them with the requisite appoint-
ments. A committee was authorized, in accordance with the
recommendation of the report, to memorialize the Legislature
for a grant of the sum required ; but, in consequence of the dif-
ference of views entertained in relation to so important a meas-
ure, it was finally suffered to rest without decision.

The question was renewed, in 1832, in the report of the Com-
mittee on Reorganization, in which it was observed that, as
" part of a perfect system," the establishment of a high school,
as soon as circumstances would warrant, was to be kept con-
stantly in view.

The growing importance of the common school system of the
city and the State at large, had been for some time attracting
the attention of prominent citizens and friends of education, and
the consultations and correspondence which had been held in
reference to the subject, especially in connection with the proper
training of a body of efficient teachers, led to the call for a pub-
lic meeting of the friends of normal schools, to be held in the
city of New York. The convention assembled, measures were
recommended, and appropriate committees were appointed. A
committee of which Gideon Lee was chairman, and Theodore
Dwight, Jr., secretary, together with a committee of the Council
of the University, laid before the Board of Trustees, in Febru-
ary, 1834, a communication inviting a conference on the subject
of their appointment. Messrs. Robert C. Cornell, Gulian C.
Yerplanck, and James I. Roosevelt, Jr., were appointed on be-
half of the Society. The action growing out of these confer-
ences did not come within the administration of the Society, and
need not be discussed here.

NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS. 647

The Executive Committee, however, sympathizing fully with
the movement, and being forced to witness the disadvantages
growing out of the non-existence of such a school, directed the
Committee on Teachers and Monitors to present a report on a
school of the kind contemplated. The report was laid before the
board on the 1st of August, in which it was recommended that
a school be opened on the last day of every week, except during
the usual vacation, in Public School No. 5, in Mott street, for
the instruction of assistants and monitors of the primary schools
and primary departments. The teachers thus specified, being
all females, gave the school the character which it has since
maintained, as the " Female Normal School." It was conduct-
ed by ELIZA Cox and WILLIAM BELDEN, Sr., then and for more
than twenty years the principal of Public School No. 2.

The success of the institution was striking and immediate,
and its beneficial influence on the day schools was too potent not
to be recognized. It was found that teachers practically drilled
in the daily routine of school discipline and instruction, and
simultaneously taught in those branches which they were expect-
ed to teach, were, beyond all comparison, superior in tact, skill,
and efficiency to persons educated in high schools or colleges,
and placed in the station of assistant teachers without prelimi-
nary preparation or apprenticeship.

A branch of this school for the education of the junior teach-
ers of the male departments was established a few months after-
ward.

In 1841, on the completion of the new edifice called " Trus-
tees' Hall," situated on the corner of Grand and Elm streets,
and designed to furnish the trustees of the Public School Society
with rooms for their meetings, as well as to provide accommoda-
tions for the female normal schools, the institution was removed
from its former location in No. 5, and held its sessions in the
new building. A large apartment, capable of accommodating
four hundred persons, for the general assembling of the school in
the morning, and five commodious recitation-rooms were pro-
vided, and the school continued to flourish with increased pros-
perity.

Upon the death of LINDLEY MURRAY, Esq., a member of the
committee charged with the care of the several schools, his place
was supplied by A. P. HALSEY, Esq. ; and on the decease of Mr.

648 THE TCBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

SAMUEL DEMILT, the chairman, Mr. GEORGE T. TREMBLE, by se-
niority, succeeded him in that station, and the vacant place on
the committee was filled by the appointment of Dr. Charles E.
Pierson. On the resignation of Mr. Halsey, William II. Neil-
son, Esq., having become a member of the committee, these
three gentlemen Messrs. Trimble, Pierson, and Neilson con-
tinued the superintendence up to the time of the dissolution of
the Society.

The success and efficiency of the normal schools will be ap-
parent from the fact stated in 1853, in the forty-seventh annual
report, that, out of the 422 teachers of all grades then engaged
in the various departments of the public schools, 386 had been,
or still were, pupils of the normal schools. Nearly 350 were
engaged in ward or other schools, and 460 graduates were en-
gaged in other professions, or in the duties of domestic life. The
whole number, from the time of its establishment in 1834
to 1853, being 1,150 trained in the male and female normal
schools.

In reviewing the history of this institution, it is impossible to
forbear paying a passing tribute to the memory of those noble
and philanthropic men by whose fostering care it was founded
and sustained. .

During the last eleven years of his life, SAMUEL DEMILT was
unremitting in his oversight of these schools, attending at each
session ; and, during the whole period of five hours, he gave, by
his interest and example, an encouragement and stimulus to the
establishment which, to a great extent, was the means of placing
it on a permanent basis.

During a brief career of usefulness, ISAAC H. CLAPP was also
unwearied in his exertions to promote the interests and welfare
of the institution, devoting all the energies of early manhood to
the cause, with a disinterested zeal and activity rarely seen, and
worthy of the highest admiration.

In addition to those who have ceased from their labors, it
would be unjust not to mention those who were either their co-
adjutors or successors in this important trust, and who, though
still engaged in similar oifices of benevolence and usefulness to
the living, have ceased to be connected with the charge of this
favorite object of their care.

In this connection, George T. Trimble deserves to be remem-

NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS. 649

bered and esteemed. During nearly the whole twenty years of
the existence of the normal school, he was among the most zeal-
ous in his watchful oversight of the female normal school. To
him and his associates the city is indebted for the institution
which has prepared so large a number of active teachers for
their responsible duties.

The trustees of the Public School Society were not behind
any of their fellow-citizens in a just appreciation of the advan-
tages and economy of the highest kind of education which could
be afforded to the masses. This charge has been made and re-
peated by men who judged by circumstances, and not by an
accurate knowledge of the publications and unsuccessful efforts
of the Society to reach the object of their cherished desire. It
would argue little for the character of an institution at whose
head stood, for forty years, such men as De Witt Clinton, Gulian
C. Verplanck, Henry Eckford, Colonel Eutgers, and others of
the same class, to suppose that it ever sought to limit the extent
of its studies, or to crush out aspirations for the higher walks of
literature and science. Its resources were never equal to the
calls upon them, and the practical aim was to give to all the
children of the school age at least some of the advantages of
education, rather than to give a higher culture to a limited num-
'ber who could afford to obtain it through other institutions. It
was deemed better to give a good rudimentary education to
scores of thousands, than to adopt a course of studies which
could be- enjoyed only by the minority. It had not the elastic
liberty of a board of officers who could call for an almost unlim-
ited amount, but was restricted in its expenditures, so that it was
obliged, in order to meet the demand upon it, to mortgage a
large portion of its property, that it might erect new buildings
for its pupils. The project of a high school, or classical institu-
tion, was no novelty with a large portion of the members of the
Public School Society.

As early as 1828, at the time of making an appeal to the
Legislature for additional means, an address to the public was
circulated, in which high schools for advanced English studies,
fully up to the standard of the best of the ward schools now in
existence, were strongly advocated, and a classical seminary was
held before the people as an object of pride, usefulness, and
honor. In this address the trustees speak as follows :

650 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

We desire to see our public schools so endowed and provided, that they
shall be equally desirable for all classes of society. To effect this, the means
of instruction which are offered to the poor should fie the very best which can
fie provided. They may not all be able to proceed so far in the path of learn-
ing as others in happier circumstances ; but to the extent of their progress
let them have all the helps which the present state of knowledge affords.
This is no mere fanciful theory. The advantages of a free intercourse and
competition between persons of all ranks and conditions in life, as exhibited
in the Edinburgh high school, have been admirably illustrated by one of
the first British orators of the age. He regarded such an institution as
invaluable in a free State ; because, to use his own language, men of the
highest and lowest rank in the community sent their children there to be
educated together. The practical beneficence of this system is attested by
the noble institutions of a sister city. It is by such a union and inter-
course that the real worth of outward distinctions is perceived that the
highest rewards of merit are felt to be equally offered to all that the
jealousies which are too apt to arise from differences of condition are melt-
ed away and that the relations which subsist between the different classes
of society are felt to be relations of mental advantage and dependence, and
not those of hostility.

In connection with this subject, the address urged a scale of
higher rewards for the qualifications of teachers, the view held
by the trustees being, that the office of teacher, considered as
one of grave responsibility and importance, called for high
attainments and a proportionate remuneration. In fact, there
has been no advance made in the common school system of New
York which was not in some form urged repeatedly by the sev-
eral boards and committees of the Public School Society.

The success and value of the normal school scheme had been
illustrated by nine years of experience, and the number of pupils
who had progressed to important posts as teachers in New York
and other localities, was constantly on the increase. The Board
of Education also, under the law of 1842, had sprung into exist-
ence, and additional schools were creating an augmented demand
for qualified teachers. Under these circumstances, Abraham R.
Lawrence introduced, at the meeting of the Board of Trustees
on May 16, 1843, the following resolution :

Resolved, That it be referred to a special committee to inquire into and
report to this board, at a future meeting, the expediency of making the nor-
mal schools day schools, to be open every day in the week, excepting Satur-
days and Sundays ; that their range of studies be so extended as to instruct
male pupils in all the branches of learning necessary to their initiation in

NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS. 651

any of the colleges of this State, and females in such studies as are taught
in the highest grade of seminaries for female instruction in this city ; and
that the said schools constitute one distinct section.

The resolution was adopted, and referred to a committee, con-
sisting of Abraham K. Lawrence, Lindley Murray, John T.
Adams, Burritt Sherwood, and James F. Depeyster.

The committee submitted a report recommending the adop-
tion of the measure, and the name " High Schools " was substi-
tuted for that of " Normal Schools." In June, 1844, the subject
was renewed, and, after a protracted discussion, a committee,
consisting of Messrs. Abraham R. Lawrence, John R. Hurd,
Samuel B. Childs, John T. Adams, and Joseph B. Collins, was
appointed, to prepare a memorial to the Legislature, asking au-
thority to establish high schools in which Latin and Greek and
similar advanced studies should be taught.

The committee submitted their report in January, .1845, in
which the necessity of such an institution was earnestly and care-
fully presented. The memorial was referred back to the com-
mittee, to operate in concert with the Executive Committee, who
had appointed several of their number to confer with the Board
of Education relative to the enterprise.

Several of the teachers in the ward schools of the Fourteenth
Ward having been refused admittance to the normal school, the
case was laid before the trustees by a committee of the Board of
Education. A conference was had, and an explanation of the
difficulty having been made, the trustees recognized the claim
of the teachers of the ward schools to the privileges of the nor-
mal schools, " on their complying with the rules and regulations
of the schools."

The measures contemplated by the resolution of Mr. Law-
rence were never prosecuted, but they became a stimulus to the
movement which resulted in the establishment of the Free Acad-
emy, under the care of the Board of Education, which was pub-
licly opened by appropriate exercises on the 5th of February,
1849.

652 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XVIII.

INFANT SCHOOLS AND PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

Female Association Girls' Schools The Infant-School Society Experiment in No. 10
Junior Department of No. 8 Theory of Infant Schools The System Approved
Delegation to Visit Boston Primary Departments Established Female Teach-
ers Introduced to the Schools Primary Schools Established.

- THE origin of our public system of education antedates the
formation of the Free-School Society about three years, and is to
be found in the benevolent efforts of a number of ladies, mem-
bers of the Society of Friends, who were zealously engaged in
labors of love and charity among the poor.

In the month of March, 1798, several ladies proposed to
organize an " Association for the Relief of the Sick Poor," and
a committee was appointed to report rules for the government
of the Association. The report was submitted at a meeting held
on the 21st of that month, and the ladies entered upon their be-
nevolent labors. The first article excluded all persons not mem-
bers of the Society of Friends from the Association ; and, on the
other hand, the sixth article provided that " no relief be afford-
ed to any of the people called Quakers" Among the ladies vAw
thus devoted themselves to the wants of the sick, were Catharine
Murray, Amy Bowne, Elizabeth Haydock, M. Minturn, Lydia
Mott, Agnes Abbatt, Elizabeth "W. Underbill, Penelope Hull,
Sarah Collins, Hannah Eddy, Deborah Franklin, and others, the
names of whose descendants are still found frequent and con-
spicuous in our public institutions, in the faithful discharge of
similar labors. These ladies became intimate with the social
condition of the families they visited, and were not long in per-
ceiving the necessity of affording to poor children that kind of
instruction best adapted to their condition. In 1801, the propo-
sition to establish a school was fully discussed, and a committee

ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN FRIENDS. 653

appointed to make the necessary arrangements and employ a
teacher. It was opened in June, 1801. The original minute in
the record, which appears not to have been used until the close
of 1802, is as follows :

The Association of Women Friends for the Relief of the Poor, having
concluded that a part of their funds should be appropriated to the educa-
tion of poor children of the following description, viz., those whose parents
belong to no religious society, and who, from gome cause or other, cannot
be admitted into any of the charity schools of this city, have appointed the
following persons as a committee to open a school for that purpose : Lydia
P. Mott, Caroline Bowne, Sarah Collins, Mary Minturn, Jr., Hannah Bowne,
aud Susan Collins ; who have, agreeably to permission, rented a room at the
rate of 16 per annum, and engaged a widow woman of good education
and morals as an instructor, and allow her a salary of 30 a year, to be
advanced at the discretion of the committee, which met at the school-room,
28th of 12th month.

The school was attended by children of both sexes, but the
committee soon became convinced that the plans they had de-
signed would be more advantageously prosecuted by admitting
only girls to the school. The male pupils were discharged, and
the institution was restricted to females during the subsequent
existence of the schools under its care.

The ladies who organized the Association and were its earli-
est members, were the following :

Catharine Murray, Hannah Eddy,

Elizabeth Bowne, Ann Eddy,

Sarah Robinson, Agnes Abbatt,

Amy Bowne, Sarah Collins,

Hannah Pearsall, Elizabeth Pearsall,

Margaret B. Haydock, Mary Pearsall Robinson,

Elizabeth Haydock, Hannah Lawrence,

Sarah Haydock [Mrs. Hicka], Rebecca Haydock,

Ann Shipley, Elizabeth "W. Underbill,

Mary R. Bowne [Mrs. King], Esther Robinson Minturn,

Amy Clarke, Penelope Minturn,

M. Minturn, Abigail Kenyon,

Lydia Mott, Penelope Hull,

Martha Stansbury, E. Hoyland "Walker,

Mary Dunbar [Mrs. Slocum], Sarah Hallet,

Jane Johnston, Sarah Bowne Minturn,

Harriet Robbins, Mary Minturn, Jr.,

Sarah Tallman, Deborah Minturn Abbatt,

654 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Hannah Bowne, Hannah Bowne,

Mary Murray [Mrs. Perkins], Ann Underbill,

Sarah Robinson, E. Tullman,

Mary Wright, Susan Collins,

Caroline Bowne, Sarah Lyons Kirby,

Elizabeth Burling, Hannah Shelton,
Charlotte Leggett.

After the erection 'of Free School No. 1, in Try on Row, in
1809, the trustees afforded accommodations to the Association
for the school for girls then established, which was continned for
many years afterward.

The school-house in Henry street, No. 2, having been erected
by the Free-School Society, the trustees delegated a committee
to inform the Female Association of the fact, and to tender to
that body the use of apartments for a school for girls. On the
16th of December, 1811, John Murray, Jr., attended a meeting
of the Association and made the communication, upon the an-
nouncement of which a committee was appointed to organize the
school, composed of Mary Minturn, Sarah Minturn, Eliza Bowne,
Sarah Marshall, Niobe Minturn, Niobe Stanton, Lydia Hath-
away, and Sarah Collins. The school was opened February 18th.
1812, with twenty pupils, Mary I. Morgan, teacher.

By the law of 1813, schools not incorporated were excluded
from the benefits of the common school fund. The friends of the
Female Association, therefore, took immediate measures to secure
an act of incorporation for the Association, which was passed by
the Legislature on March 26th, 1813. By-laws were adopted,
and the officers of the Association were designated as first and
second directors, secretary, treasurer, and register. The Board
of Trustees consisted of twelve members.

A third school was opened for girls on the 8th of January,
1815. The committee to superintend the opening of No. 3 con-
sisted of Sarah Collins, Rachel Seaman, Elizabeth Clapp, Niobe
Minturn, and Mary M. Perkins. At about the same time, the
trustees of the Free-School Society granted the use of an addi-
tional room in No. 1 to the Association, for one of their schools.
During the first three months of the existence of No. 3, 271
pieces of needlework were finished by the girls. The variety
and kind of work performed may be seen from the following
inventory : 18 shirts, 11 shifts, 21 sheets, 16 samplers, 23 era-

SCHOOLS FOE GIRLS. 655

vats, 4: night-caps, 4 thread cases, 2 pair stockings, 47 diaper
towels, 15 pocket kerchiefs, 8 pillow-cases, 7 table-cloths, 33
coarse towels, 9 check aprons, 25 infant shirts, 2 pair neck-gus-
sets, 5 muslin aprons, 5 pair wristbands, 4 muslin borders, 3
window-curtains, 1 pair muslin sleeves, 2 calico ruffles, 6 house-
cloths. The following quarter presented an equally flattering
report of the industry of the pupils. Susan Morgan, teacher.

On the 9th of May, 1817, a committee was appointed, con-
sisting of Sarah Collins, Sarah Ludlam, Elizabeth W. Lawrence,
and Niobe Minturn, to superintend the opening of Girls' School
No. 4. The school was opened on the 7th of July, the pupils
being transferred from one of the schools of the Free-School
Society. Isabella Morgan was appointed teacher.

The provisions of the law which restricted the expenditure
of the school money for the payment of teachers' salaries being
found inconvenient in practice, the Association petitioned the
Legislature for an amendment of the law in favor of the schools
under its care. The petition was granted, and a special act
passed on the 12th of April, 1819.

The trustees of the African Free School, having erected the
new house in Mulberry street, near Grand, offered the use of the
lower room to the Association. A committee was appointed to
examine the premises and report upon the proposition. The
room was rented for $200 a year, and a school commenced for
colored girls. The proportion of school moneys received by the
Association in 1820, was $1,977.

In May, 1820, the trustees of the Free-School Society re-
quested the Association to appoint a committee to superintend
the school for girls in their new building in Bivington street, No.
4, which had just been completed. The committee was accord-
ingly appointed, and consisted of Sarah Collins, Elizabeth Pear-
sail, Eliza Murray, Mary L. Hartshorne, Sarah Shotwell, Pe-
nelope Minturn, and Mary Minturn, Jr. The industrial branch-
es of instruction being considered of great importance, the com-
mittee, having examined the school with great satisfaction,
reported in favor of appointing an efficient committee for the
purpose of aiding the teacher in the sewing department.

The Association having for some time occupied apartments
in School No. 2, in Henry street, and the trustees, being desirous
of organizing female schools under their own care, notified the

656 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Association, in January, 1823, of their desire to occupy the
whole building. Measures were taken to procure other apart-
ments in the neighborhood, which were successful, and the
school was removed to the lecture-rooms of the Rutgers Street
Church.

The Association for many years held annual public examina-
tions of their pupils, the exercises being held in the large room
of Free School No. 1, in Tryon Row. The pupils of the several
schools were assembled on these occasions, and, in 1823, about
550 represented the total number present from the schools. The
number on register was about 750.

In March, 1828, it was resolved to apply to the Public School
Society for the use of a room in one of their buildings for an
infant school. The Executive Committee replied affirmatively,
granting the gratuitous use of either of the unappropriated base-
ment : rooms of their school-houses for the purpose, during the
pleasure of the board. The trustees, however, did not confirm
the action of the Executive Committee, and the Association
obtained apartments in the Lutheran Church, in "Walker street.
Thei school was opened on the 20th of October, 1828, under the
care of Anna Harford.

On the 28th of April, the Association closed the school for
girls, which had so long been conducted under the original plans.
The operation of the law of 1828 deprived this body of the use
of the school fund, and it was obliged to contract its sphere of
labor. But several bequests and donations having been made to
the Association, which yielded about $500 a year, in addition to
the contributions and subscriptions of members and friends, it
was decided that one or more infant schools be established, as the
best mode of appropriating the fund to carry out the objects of
the donors.

In February, 1830, a committee was appointed to procure
rooms for another school, for which purpose the basement of the
Bowery Church was selected. This building was located between
"Walker and Hester streets. At the same time, however, the
Board of Trustees of the Public School Society, having become
convinced that the establishment of schools for young children
was demanded, adopted a resolution granting the use of the un-
occupied basement-rooms of their buildings to the Association
for that purpose, and tendering apartments in No. 5, in Mott

SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS. 657

street. The basement of this house had never been finished, and
the trustees proposed that the Association should finish and fit it
up, and, whenever possession should be taken by the board, the
expense should be repaid to the Association. The proposal was
accepted, and the proposed school in the Bowery church was
never organized. The rooms in Public School No. 5 were fitted
up and furnished, and the school opened in the month of June
of the same year (1830), and was sustained until 1845, at which
time the trustees notified the Association of their desire to have
the infant schools transferred to the jurisdiction of the board,
a'nd made a department under the general system which had
been.^adopted by the Public School Society. The school was
accordingly transferred, and the Female Association closed its
labors for the instruction of poor children.

The character of the schools established by these ladies was
always high for the grade. Inspired with the idea that was so
predominant in the minds of the trustees of the Public School
Society that of giving the best rudimentary education to the
greatest number possible the range of studies was not advanced
as high as it has since been in our public schools, but it was
accompanied with a generous and constant supervision by those
accomplished and intelligent Christian women, which imparted a
moral and elevating influence not gained from splendid and
costly appointments or glittering apparatus. The practical in-
struction in the industrial arts, to which females must mainly
look for subsistence at the present time, with the kindness and
maternal sympathy which pervaded the school-room, has doubt-
less exerted a quiet but refining influence over many minds and
hearts that will ever remember the attentions and visits of their
devoted friends.

The Female Association still exists, but its office is confined
to the distribution of the annual income from its funds for chari-
table uses.

It is worthy of remembrance that Col. Henry Rutgers, who
was from an early period a devoted friend of the system of com-
mon schools, left a legacy, amounting to $750, for the use of the
Female Association. It was committed to the. care of the trus-
tees of the Free-School Society, who paid $45 interest annually
to the Association the principal sum to revert to the Society
42

658 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

whenever the Association should cease its labors in the cause of
education.

INFANT SCHOOLS.

Passing from this brief review of the career of the Female
Association, a record must be made of the first efforts to estab-
lish a class of schools which were as novel in their design as they
were interesting, simply as an educational experiment.

During the year 1826, a great degree of interest and atten-
tion was directed to the establishment of " INFANT SCHOOLS,"
which had recently been introduced in England. Early in 1827,
an association of ladies was formed in New York for the purpose
of organizing a school upon the same plan, and for children of
the same age. The theory of the system may be briefly defined
to be this : The mind and heart of the child are susceptible of
receiving impressions of a deep and lasting nature, and of form-
ing habits at a very early age. The impressions should be those
of virtue, love, gentleness, and piety, all having a tendency to
give to the opening moral consciousness of the child a pure and
lofty direction. Preoccupy the mind and heart with the seeds
of goodness, and they will grow and produce a corresponding
character in the after-life. To realize this idea, it was proposed
to take children even as young as eighteen months, who, being
imitative, could at least begin by learning sounds, motions, and
habits of order and stillness. These groups of tender pupils
were fittingly denominated " infant schools," and the novelty of
the experiment, at least, stimulated the desire to make a fair
trial of its value. In addition to these reasons, another was
forcibly presented, growing out of the fact that the children of
laborers were often left at home, locked up in the absence of
parents, and in danger of fire or other accidents, or left to roam
in the streets, exposed to casualties and corrupting influences.

The first meeting- of ladies was held in the Brick Church
Chapel on May 23, 1827, when Mrs. JOANNA BETHUNE was called
to the chair, and Mrs. HOLT was appointed secretary.

Two resolutions were adopted : 1st. To organize a society
for the care of children from eighteen months to two years of

INFANT SCHOOLS. G59

age ; and, 2d. Persons contributing one dollar a year, to be
members.

The following officers were chosen :

Mrs. BETHUNE, First Directress.

Mrs. STRIKER, Second Directress.

Mrs. TUTHILL, Secretary and Treasurer pro tern.

On the 28th of June, the fourth meeting of the Society was
held, at which a constitution was adopted, officers and managers
were chosen, and a letter was read from His Excellency DE WITT
CLINTON, Governor of the State, who consented to become the
patron of the Society, which, in fact, was organized at his sug-
gestion. The officers chosen were the following :

Mrs. JOANNA BETHUNE, First Directress.

Miss STRIKER, Second Directress.

Mrs. HANNAH L. MURRAY, Treasurer.

Mrs. LAURA E. HYDE, Corresponding Secretary.

Miss M. A. C. WILLETT, Recording Secretary.

A board of thirty managers was also appointed, by-laws
adopted, and the Society was fully organized.

As soon as sufficient funds were collected to warrant the com-
mencement of operations, a school was opened, July 16, in the
basement-story of the Canal Street Presbyterian Church, corner
of Greene street. The school, in a few months, numbered one
hundred and seventy pupils on its register, with an average
attendance of from sixty to one hundred. Two teachers were
employed, with an assistant, who also attended to the fires, keep-
ing the school-room in order, and other general duties.

The age of children was specified, in the constitution, at from
eighteen months to six years. During the winter, few under
three years of age were able to attend.

The school had been in operation less than six months, when
Governor CLINTON, who had been the President of the Public
School Society from its foundation, made the following allusion
to it in his Message to the Legislature :

The institution of infant schools is the pedestal to the pyramid. It
embraces those children who are generally too young for common schools ;
it relieves parents from engrossed attention to their offspring, softens the
brow of care, and lightens the hand of labor. More efficacious in reaching
the heart than the head, in improving the temper than the intellect, it has
been eminently useful in laying the foundation of good feelings, good prin-
ciples, and good habits.

660 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

A communication was sent by Mrs. Betlmne to the Public
School Society, asking, on behalf of herself and her colleagues,
the use of the basement-rooms of No. 8, in Grand street, for
school purposes. The Board of Trustees granted the request,
and the school was organized. By this means was originated
the extensive system known as the " Primary Schools " and
" Primary Departments." A few months afterward, Mrs.
Bethune, on behalf of " THE INFANT SCHOOL SOCIETY," applied
for the use of the rooms in No. 10, in Duane street, which ap-
plication was referred to the Executive Committee with power,
by whom the whole subject was referred to a sub-committee.
The report was laid before the Board of Trustees in February,
1828, and was as follows :

The Committee on the Infant School and Junior Department System
REPORT :

That they have carefully attended to the duty assigned them, have visit-
ed the schools several times, and have had an interview with the first direc-
tress of the Infant School Society.

That the infant miud is capable of receiving instruction at the early age
of two or three years ; that the inculcation of moral, ideal, and literal
knowledge cannot be commenced at too early a period after the faculty of
speech is developed ; that the formation of good habits is of immense im-
portance even with children of the age in question ; that the providing a
place in which the younger children of the poor may pass the day comfort-
ably, whilst their parents are engaged in their usual avocations, instead of
wandering the streets, exposed to the contamination of vice, is an object
worthy the regard of the benevolent. These your committee consider as the
foundation axioms on which the infant school system is established, and
their examination of the subject has led to the conclusion that that founda-
tion standeth sure.

The committee do not consider it necessary to enlarge their report with
reasoning, but that facts and the results of their investigation are alone
required of them.

The infant school in Canal street has on register one hundred and sev-
enty children of both sexes, and from about two to six years of age, the lat-
ter being the limit at which any was received. The number in attendance
varies from fifty to one hundred. There are two female teachers, a princi-
pal, and one assistant, employed at salaries of $200 each. The children arc
allowed to come early in the morning, and to remain till near dark, bringing
their dinners with them, or to attend during the usual school hours only.
The essence of the system pursued in the school appears to be a judicious
combination of instruction and amusement, and that both shall be calcu-
lated to form and elicit ideas, rather than mere literal knowledge, though
this is by no means neglected. The children are evidently happy and inter-

INFANT SCHOOLS. C61

ested in their employments, and the scene ia altogether deeply engaging to
the best feelings of humanity. The opinion of the first directress and teach-
ers is, that the same plan may be advantageously adopted in a school of two
to three hundred children ; and the English Reports inform us of schools of
the latter number now in sucessful operation.

In the junior department of No. 8 there are more than three hundred
children, giving an average daily attendance of about two hundred and
fifty. The system of this school is the same as that of the public schools
generally, and therefore well known to the trustees. The children are one
degree older than those of the infant school say from three to seven or
eight. The school appeared in as good order as could be reasonably ex-
pected.

On a comparison of the mode of instruction adopted in the two schools,
your committee are of opinion that the infant school system, as applied to
children of such tender years, is decidedly preferable ; the one being the
mere course of common instruction in the knowledge of letters and wt>rds,
the other including the first, arid extending its views to what is of much
greater importance the knowledge of things and ideas, with moral maxims
and scriptural instruction ; the whole illustrated by visible objects and ver-
bal explanations calculated to excite the attention and interest the feelings
of the infant mind.

From this view of the subject, your committee are led to the conclusion
that it is expedient that infant schools be gradually established throughout
the city ; and the question only remains, whether this shall be done by the
already organized Infant School Society of ladies, and to whom the credit
and honor are due for having first, and by persevering exertions, introduced
this system into this city, or by the Public School Society. As there are
thousands of children who would be proper objects for these schools, and
many rooms and large funds would be required to carry them on advan-
tageously, it would probably be best that a part of the duty of founding
and continuing them be in the hands of a society of men, though their im-
mediate supervision would be better entrusted to the motherly patronage
and care of ladies. And as these schools would be introductory to and
could be conveniently accommodated in the basements of the public schools,
your committee are of the opinion that it is advisable for this Society to
undertake the work, and that the Infant School Society, with such other
ladies as may hereafter join them, be invited to act as a committee for the
visitation and superintendence of the schools.

The comnfittee are aware of the importance of the measure proposed,
and believe it will be judicious to embark therein gradually ; and, as the
final result of their investigations, they with deference propose :

1st. That the junior department school in No. 8 be, for the present, con-
tinued without change.

2d. That an infant school be opened by the Public School Society in the
basement of No. 10, so soon as competent teachers can be obtained and made
acquainted with the peculiarities of the system.

3d. That the Infant School Society be requested to act as a ladies' com-

662 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

mittee for the management and supervision of said school, and' that tho
school committee of No. 10 be associated with the sub-committee of ladies
so far as to act as their advisers and assistants.

4th. That the teachers be appointed by the Executive Committee, on the
recommendation of the Infant School Society. That the ladies' committee
be requested to adopt such rules and regulations for the schools as they shall
deem proper, subject, however, to the advice and control of the trustees.

5th. That the sub-committee of ladies having special charge of the
school, make a quarterly report to the Board of Trustees of the state and
condition thereof, with the number and progress of the children, &c., &c.,

ROBERT C. CORNELL, \
F. SHELDON, > Committee.

LINDLEY MURRAY, )

The infant school iu No. 10 had been in operation about
eighteen months, when, in April, 1829, a committee, consisting
of Messrs. Samuel F. Mott, Erastus Ellsworth, W. W. Chester,
Samuel Demilt, and J. II. Taylor, was appointed to examine it,
in connection with the junior department of No. 8, and report
upon the adoption of the system, either with or without the aid
of the Infant School Society. The committee reported very
favorably upon the plan, and recommended it for its superiority
over the mixed system of the junior departments. Questions of
a financial and legal nature interposed, however, to prevent tho
immediate extension of the system. The funds were not deemed
to be sufficient, and the restrictions of the law relative to the
distribution of the school money served to raise a barrier to ap-
propriations for that class of schools ; as the addition of so many
children of an age under that specitied by the law of the State
would give an unequal proportion to the city, by including thou-
sands of pupils who were younger than the school children of
the rural and town districts. The report was referred back to
the committee, to procure the legal opinion of the law members
of the board upon the points suggested by the committee. The
opinions of the committee being sustained, it was dtemed to be
inexpedient at the time to increase the number of infant schools.

In the month of October of the same year, the subject was
renewed, the reports of the committee and the legal opinions
being read in full. Two of the opinions (those of Messrs. Ben-
jamin Clark and Hiram Ketchum) were adverse to the right of
the Society to organize and draw money for those schools ; and
four of the opinions (those of Messrs. Robert Sedgwick, James

INFANT SCHOOLS. 663

I. Roosevelt, Jr., Samuel Boyd, and D. Lord) were in favor of
the said right. A resolution was offered, declaring it expedient
to establish infant schools, which was lost by a vote of fourteen
in the affirmative and sixteen in the negative.

Notwithstanding the apparent difficulties and the positive
differences of opinion as to the propriety of adopting the infant
school as a part of the system of instruction, some of its friends
were so convinced of its importance, that they could not long
permit the matter to rest. The Executive Committee had the
proposition under constant advisem,ent, and in May, 1830, the
report of a sub-committee on the junior department of No. 8
was laid before the board. It rcommended the alteration of the
rooms occupied by the junior department so as to adapt it for
the use of an infant school. The subject was referred to a com-
mittee, consisting of Messrs. John R. Hurd, Robert C. Cornell,
Hiram Ketchum, J. H. Taylor, and Charles Oakley.

The report of this committee, presented to the board in July,
recommended the change of the system, and left the details of
the arrangements to the several sections, the school-buildings at
that time not being equally well adapted for separate depart-
ments. The 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th classes were to be designated
as the Third or Junior Department, and to be under the care of
female teachers. The important change of teachers thus intro-
duced was alone a great advance, males having been previously
almost exclusively employed, and the younger classes of scholars
having been usually assigned to the care of male monitors. The
advantage of female teachers for these young learners was too
evident to the committee, and their introduction was warmly
urged in the report. It was referred to a special meeting to be
held in September, at which time a preamble and resolutions
adopting the infant school system were presented, and adopted
by the board. It was resolved to change the junior department
of No. 8 into an infant school, and a committee was appointed
to examine the school in No. 10, and report such modifications
and changes as might be deemed advisable. Messrs. Robert C.
Cornell, Myndert Van Schaick, John R. Hurd, Samuel F. Mott,
and Lindley Murray were entrusted with this service. Their
report was submitted in the month of November, with a code of
regulations for the schools, which were designated as " PRIMARY
DEPARTMENTS." The school committees, or " sections " of trus-
tees, were to be aided by a sub-committee of ladies, who should

664 T1JE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

be entitled to nominate the teachers and monitors. Female
scholars from two years of age and upward were to be admitted,
and male scholars from two to six years of age, but no children
were to be admitted who were qualified to enter the 4th class of
the public schools. Two cents a week was the tuition fee, the
pay system being at that time in operation.

The plans and recommendations of the committee were
adopted, and the Executive Committee was directed to apply to
the Legislature for power to educate and draw school money for
all children between two and sixteen years of age. The Manual
was also altered and amended to conform, to the new system, and
copies were printed and distributed to the teachers.

The Society, at the same time, took measures to secure addi-
tional means from the Legislature, which were ultimately suc-
cessful, and a committee was appointed to visit the Boston
schools, to examine and report upon the system there in use.
The deputation made a report upon the remodelling and im-
provement of the schools of the Society, a prominent feature of
which report was the general plan of primary schools, or schools
similar to the primary departments, but located in buildings of
a moderate size, and so distributed over the city as to be easy
and near of access to young children. These schools were to be
exclusively under the care of female teachers, subject to the con-
trol of the respective sections to which they might be assigned.
The scheme submitted by the committee was adopted in May,
1832, and Messrs. Samuel W. Seton, James B. Brinsmade,
George T. Trimble, J. H. Taylor, Mahlon Day, Heman Averill,
and Samuel Demilt were selected as the Committee on Primary
Schools, to introduce the system under the resolutions adopted,
by organizing ten primary schools. The gentlemen thus com-
missioned held their first meeting on May 22d, 1832, and entered
with great zeal upon the discharge of their duties, and a number
of schools were soon put into successful operation. They in-
creased in number and importance until about the year 1844,
when the questions arose between the Society and the Board of
Education as to the power of the former to erect new buildings
and acquire additional property for school purposes. At this
time the Society had. fifty-six primary schools for white children,
and five of the same class for colored children, in operation, in
which 8,970 pupils were instructed. By the law of 1853, they
were transferred to the Board of Education.

SCHOOLS FOR COLORED CHILDREN. 665

CHAPTER XIX.

SCHOOLS FOR COLORED CHILDREN.

ON the 25th of January, 1785, a number of gentlemen of the
city of New York, who had witnessed the sufferings of'the col-
ored population, and the frequent injustice done to free persons
of color, organized " A Society for Promoting the Manumission
of Slaves, and Protecting such of them as have been or may be
Liberated." The meeting was held at the dwelling-house of
John Simmons, innkeeper.

The gentlemen present on that occasion were Robert Bowne,
Samuel Franklin, John Murray, Sr., Robert Troup, Lawrence
Embree, Melanchthon Smith, William Goforth, Willet Seaman,
Elijah Cock, Joseph Lawrence, William Keese, John Murray,
Jr., Effingham Embree, Thomas Bowne, Edward Lawrence,
James Cogswell, William Shotwell, Ezekiel Robins, and John
Keese.

The meeting was called to order by Mr. Troup, who stated
the object of the conference, and Melanchthon Smith was chosen
chairman. A committee, consisting of Samuel Franklin, Law-
rence Embree, Robert Troup, Melanchthon Smith, and John
Murray, Sr., was appointed to report a draft of by-laws and

666 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

regulations for the government of the Sdfciety. The meeting
then adjourned to the 4th of February.

At the meeting held by adjournment, a number of other
gentlemen were present, among whom appear the names of John
Jay and Alexander Hamilton, Hon. John Jay being elected
chairman.

The Committee on " Rules " submitted their report, which
was discussed, amended, and adopted as a constitution of the
Society. The preamble is as follows :

. The benevolent Creator and Father of men having given to them all an
equal right to life, liberty, and property, no sovereign power on earth can
justly deprive them of either, but in conformity to impartial government
and laws to which they have expressly or tacitly consented.

It is our duty, therefore, both as free citizens and Christians, not only to
regard with compassion the injustice done to those among us who are held
as slaves, but to endeavor, by lawful ways and means, to enable them to
share equally with us in that civil and religious liberty with which an indul-
gent Providence has blessed these States ; and to which these our brethren
are, by nature, as much entitled as ourselves.

The violent attempts lately made to seize and export for sale several free
negroes who were peaceably following their respective occupations In this
city, must excite the indignation of every friend to humanity, and ought to
receive exemplary punishment.

The hope of impunity is, too often, an invincible temptation to trans-
gression ; and as the helpless condition of the persons alluded to doubtless
exposed them to the outrages they experienced, so it is probable that the
like circumstances may again expose them, and others, to similar violences.
Destitute of friends and of knowledge, struggling with poverty, and accus-
tomed to submission, they are under great disadvantages in asserting their
rights.

These considerations induce us to form ourselves into a society, to be
styled " A Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting
such of them as have been or may be Liberated."

After the adoption of the constitution, Alexander Hamilton,
Robert Troup, and White Matlack were appointed a committee
to recommend a course of proceedings to be pursued in the case
of persons to be aided by the Society. The meeting then ad-
journed to the 10th of the same month, for the purpose of effect-
ing a permanent organization under the rules. Accordingly, on
that day, the members met, and having balloted for officers,
Hon. John Jay was elected president, Samuel Franklin, vice-
president, John Murray, Jr., treasurer, and John Keese, secre-

THE MANUMISSION SOCIETY. 667

tary. The Standing Committee was composed of six members,
as follows : Melanchthon Smith, Lawrence Embree, Dr. James
Cogswell, Ezekiel Kobins, "William Goforth, and Elijah Cock.

The objects of the Society were pursued with great diligence,
and it became evident to the friends of the colored race that, in
addition to other means of advancing their interests and elevat-
ing them in their social and moral condition, a school for the
education of children was essential. The Standing Committee,
composed at that time (May llth, 1786) of Jacob Seaman, Law-
rence Embree, "White Matlack, and Leonard M. Cutting, made
a report, in which they recommended the appointment of a com-
mittee to report a plan for establishing a free school for negro
children. John Murray, Jr., James Cogswell, and John Keese,
were appointed as the committee.

At the following meeting, held August 10th, the committee
reported their plan, which provided for the raising of money by
subscription or donation, the appointment of a teacher at a sea-
sonable time, and the selection and appointment of trustees by
the Society. The report was laid on the table until the next
meeting, held on November 9th, when the report was amended
and adopted, and Melanchthon Smith, John Murray, Jr., Mat-
thew Clarkson, William Goforth, Lawrence Embree, William
Backhouse, and Dr. Cogswell were appointed a committee to
make collections for the purpose. On the 17th of May, 1787,
the fund subscribed amounted to about $5,000, and the committee
asked that they be discharged, and that a new committee be ap-
pointed. The request was granted, and the new committee con-
sisted of John Murray, Jr., William Backhouse, Abijah Ham-
mond, John Lawrence, White Matlack, Richard PJatt, and
Ezekiel Robins.

At the meeting held on August 16th, the committee reported
that 801 12s. had been subscribed, and urged the adoption of
immediate measures for the organization of a school. The report
was adopted, and Rev. John Rodgers, D.D., John Murray, Jr.,
White Matlack, Lawrence Embree, William Backhouse, Dr.
James Cogswell, and Ebenezer Harwood, were appointed. The
committee reported at the next quarterly meeting, held on No-
vember 15th, stating that they had prepared an application to
Trinity Church for a donation of a piece of ground for the pur-
pose of a school for colored children, and that they had engaged

668 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

a schoolmaster to take charge of the school. This gentleman,
the committee stated, had dismissed a school of white children
in order to take charge of the proposed school, and under such
terms as convinced the committee that "gain was not his object,"
for he would furnish a school-room and fuel, and teach the chil-
dren for six months, " for sixty pounds." The teacher, Corne-
lius Davis, having been thus obtained, the next step was to adopt
rules for the admission and government of scholars ; and, on the
1st of November, a school was opened, which numbered twelve
pupils at the time of the report. On the recommendation of the
committee, twelve trustees were appointed to have the super-
vision of the school until the next annual election. The Board
of Trustees, at this first organization, consisted of Melanchthon
Smith, Lawrence Embree, John Lawrence, Matthew Clarkson,
John Bleecker, Thomas Burling, Jacob Seaman, White Matlack,
James Cogswell, Willett Seaman, Nathaniel Lawrence, and John
Murray, Jr. In February, 1788, the trustees reported 29 pupils
in attendance. In November, there were 56 on register.

In May, 1791, a committee of four members Messrs. James
Cogswell, Samuel Franklin, John Lawrence, and Moses Rogers
was appointed to raise funds for the building of a school-house.
At the following meeting in November, the President of the
Society, Matthew Clarkson, Dr. Cogswell, and William W.
Woolsey, were named as a committee to procure a lot from the
corporation of Trinity Church. The application was replied to
negatively, and the only lot of ground which would answer the
wishes of the Society, in the rear of the chapel in Beekman
street, was fixed at so high a price, and on such terms, that the
Society could not comply with them. The committee was ac-
cordingly continued ; the Committee on Subscriptions was dis-
charged, and, in February, 1793, a new committee appointed.

In August, 1792, a school for colored girls, taught by Mrs.
Davis, was taken under the control of the Society.

The difficulty of procuring a 'suitable piece of ground pre-
sented an obstacle to the operations of the school, and, at the
close of 1794 (November 18), a committee of three was appoint
ed to take steps to obtain an act of incorporation for the African
Free School, and to apply to the Regents of the University to
have the institution recognized by that body. Noah Webster,
Jr., Robert Bowne, and William Johnson were named for that

AFRICAN FREE SCHOOL. 669

duty. The committee reported at the following meeting, and
were discharged. At the annual meeting in February, 1795, it
was resolved to apply to the Legislature for aid, and a committee
of five was appointed to prepare and present a petition, making
the wants of the school known to that body. The effort was
successful, an appropriation was made, and the committee was
discharged, on. the reading of their report, in May, 1796.

In May, 1794, Frederick Jay, Esq., had presented the Soci-
ety a lot of land on Great George street, 25 by 100 feet, for a
school-house, and, if deemed not desirable for that purpose, the
Society were authorized to sell it, and use the proceeds in the
purchase of another site. The committee appointed in Novem-
ber of the same year for the purpose of selecting a location,
were continued until February, 1796, when they reported that,
in consequence of the high prices at which property was held,
they could not make a desirable selection, and they were dis-
charged.

In November, 1795, John Murray, Jr., the treasurer, report-
ed that he had received a legacy of 200 from his father's estate,
for the use of the African Free School, the interest on that
amount to be a perpetual annuity for the benefit of the school.

In April, 1796, a special meeting of the Society was held, on
the call of the trustees of the school, to hear a report on its con-
dition and necessities. The report was discussed, and laid on
the table until the regular meeting in May. The trustees re-
ported that they had selected a piece of property in Cliff street,
and had taken steps to secure its purchase. The report was
accepted and approved, and the trustees directed to proceed with
their plans. They were authorized to sell the lot donated by
Mr. Jay, and appropriate the proceeds toward the purchase of
the property. A large committee was appointed to obtain con-
tributions, viz. : Thomas Eddy, Alexander Hamilton, Matthew
Clarkson, Peter Jay Munro, Gabriel Furman, John Campbell,
Samuel Boyd, Streatfield Clarkson, Noah "Webster, William
Johnsoiv, Moses Rogers, Samuel Bowne, Thomas Franklin, Wil-
liam Dunlap, George M. Woolsey, George Gosman, Jacob Mott,
John Murray, Jr., and Andrew Cock. The trustees were also
directed to employ teachers, whose aggregate salaries should not
exceed $700. The treasurer was directed to pay to the trustees
200 on the purchase-money, and 100 for repairs to the premises.

670 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

In January, 1797, the trustees reported that they had em-
ployed "William Pirsson as teacher, at $500 a year, and John
Teasman as assistant, with a salary of $120 a year. Abigail
Nicolls, the former female teacher, was also continued, with a
salary of $200 a year. The branches taught were reading, writ-
ing, arithmetic, the elements of geography, with sewing, &c., in
the girls' school. The school at that time numbered 122 pupils
63 males an<J 59 females, with an average attendance of
about 80.

The trustees also reported an evening school for colored
pupils, taught by the same teachers, having 36 male and 8
female pupils, averaging about 35 the whole number of pupils
being 166. The improvement of the school was such that, on
the 1st of May, 1797, the salaries were increased, and Mr. Pirs-
son was paid $625, Miss Nicolls, $250, and Mr. Teasman, $200
a year.

In 1797, the Corporation made a grant of $275 to the school,
and the trustees were directed to make inquiries and take all
proper steps to secure an apportionment of the public money
with the other schools entitled to the use of the fund.

The Corporation made a further donation, in the following
year, of $250.

In 1799, Mr. Pirsson was allowed to retire, and John Teas-
man conducted the school, at a salary of $300, assisted by Miss
ISTicolls, whose salary was reduced to $200. Want of means
occasioned this retrenchment.

In May, 1800, the Corporation made a donation of $517.

In 1801, the Legislature made an apportionment to the school
which amounted to $1.565.78, to be loaned on real estate, and
the interest only used for the schools. An annual report of its
condition was required to be made to the Legislature.

The progress of the school during this time was encouraging
to the friends of the depressed people for whose benefit the Soci-
ety was organized, and the various appropriations made by both
the city and State authorities, afforded them very important aid
in carrying out their plans. During the year 1807, the Lancas-
terian system of instruction for poor children, which had been
lately introduced into the school of the " Free-School Society,"
was also adopted in its modified form by the trustees of the Afri-
can Free School.

AFRICAN FREE SCHOOL. 671

The Manumission Society had now been in existence about
twenty-three years, and the importance of a more perfect organi-
zation and well-defined legal rights induced its members to apply
for an act of incorporation, which was granted, and passed on
the 19th of February, 1808.

The premises occupied by the school in Cliff street were not
as desirable as the trustees wished, and an opportunity for a
change was presented at the close of the year 1809. In the
month of December, the large school-house on Tryon Row,
erected by the Free-School Society, was finished, and opened on
the llth, with 'public exercises. The school had been previously
held in apartments in the old Almshouse building in the Park,
and the trustees of the African Free School applied for the privi-
lege of occupying them. It was granted, but, in consequence
of inconveniences which arose, the school was soon removed to
its former location in Cliff street. Not long afterward, in 1811,
its apparatus was enriched by the addition of a library.

The necessity of a better location for the school pressed con-
stantly on the attention of the trustees, and they made an ear-
nest appeal to the Corporation for the donation of a piece of
ground for the purpose. In 1812, a site in William street, near
Duane, was granted in answer to the appeal. There were leases
upon it, a lease of one half being for fourteen years, and the
other being a life-lease. The trustees recommended the purchase
of these leases, the sale of the Cliff street and other property,
and the erection of a new building in William street. The Soci-
ety accordingly authorized the changes proposed. The Cliff
street property was sold for $5,000, and the lease for fourteen
years purchased for $400. Before the purchaser took possession
of the Cliff street property, the house was destroyed by fire
(January 5, 1814), and he refused to close the purchase unless
some allowance were made by the trustees. They concluded not
to alter the terms, and the sale was not then made.

.In October of that year, the trustees were directed to erect a
building, 30 by 60 feet, on the William street lots, and to mort-
gage the Cliff street property for a sufficient sum to pay for the
house, which was not to cost over $1,800. The property was
mortgaged for $2,500, which was expended in paying for the,
erection of the house and the purchase of the lease.

In a few months after opening the new school, the room be-

672 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

came so crowded with pupils that it was found necessary to
engage a separate room next to the school, to accommodate such
of the females as were to be taught sewing. This branch had
been for some time discontinued, but it was now resumed under
a well-qualified young woman, Miss Lucy Turpen, whose amiable
disposition, and faithful as well as successful discharge of her
duties, made her greatly esteemed both by her pupils and by the
trustees. Miss Turpen, after serving the board for some time,
removed to Ohio, and her place was supplied by Miss Mary
Lincruin, who, with her predecessor, had been a pupil of the
Female Association in this city, whose schools were models of
the class. Miss Lincrum was succeeded by Eliza J. Cox, and
the latter by Mary Ann Cox, under both 'of whom the female
department sustained its character for order and usefulness.

The increase in numbers of the colored people, and the
growth and expansion of the city, called for the erection of a
new house ; and a location being found in Mulberry street, near
Grand, a building was erected, and African School No. 2 was
opened in May, 1820. The building was of brick, two stories
high, 75 by 35 feet, standing on a lot of ground 50 by 100 feet.

In the year 1824, General LA FAYETTE visited the United
States, and, during his stay in the city of New York, he visited
the public institutions, and, among others, some of the schools
of the Public School Society. General La Fayette had been
elected an honorary member of the Manumission Society in the
year 1788, in company with Granville Sharpe and Thomas Clark-
son, of England, and the members of the Society could not allow
the opportunity to pass of presenting so distinguished a guest to
the pupils of the school. Accordingly, on the 10th of Septem-
ber, General La Fayette, in company with several of the trustees
and officers, visited the school, and witnessed some of their ex-
ercises, expressing great satisfaction with the proceedings. One
of the pupils addressed him as follows :

GENERAL LA FAYETTE : In behalf of myself and my fellow-schoolmates,
may I be permitted to express our sincere and respectful gratitude to you
for the condescension you have manifested this day in visiting this institu-
tion, which is one of the noblest specimens of New Yor?: philanthropy.
Here, sir, you behold hundreds of the poor children of Africa, sharing with
those of a lighter hue in the blessings of education ; and, while it will be
our pleasure to remember the great deeds you have done for America, it will

SCHOOLS FOB COLORED CHILDREN. 673

be our delight also to cherish the memory of General La Fayette as a friend
to African emancipation, and as a member of this institution.

To which the General replied briefly,
I thank you, my dear child.

The schools continued to prosper under the care given to
them, and, in 1829, the pupils in No. 1 numbered 262, while
No. 2 had a register of 452 in good attendance. The trustees
of the Public School Society at this time were making an ap-
peal to the public for an increased school-tax, in order to aiford
the means for the necessary extension of the system of public
instruction. The trustees of the African Free School united in
the effort, which was successful, being generously responded to
by the people, and enacted by the Legislature.

In January, 1832, C. C. Andrews, the teacher of No. 2,
tendered his resignation, to take effect on the 1st of May, but
the time was shortened, and he surrendered his trust on the
10th of April, to James Adams. Mr. Andrews had been em-
ployed as a teacher by the Society for twenty-three years, a fact
which alone attests his faithfulness and success. But a prejudice
against his administration had arisen among the pupils and their
friends, and a loss of attendance, showing that his influence was
much impaired, led the trustees very reluctantly to accept his
resignation. Mr. Andrews wrote a " History of the African
Free School," which was published in 1830, containing many
interesting productions of pupils of the school. Miss Julia G.
Andrews, his daughter, also teacher in the female department
of No. 2, resigned at the same time. No. 1 had been changed
to a girls' school, of which Caroline Roe was teacher.

About the 1st of November, 1831, a new school y No. 3, wa&
opened in Nineteenth street, near the Sixth avenue, under the
care of Benjamin F. Hughes. The attendance was good for
some time, the number of pupils being about 80, but it became
reduced by reason of its inconvenient location ; and a difficulty
having arisen in obtaining suitable premises, owing to the objec-
tions urged against a colored school by the people in that vicin-
ity, the trustees chose a building in Amity street, near the Sixth
avenue.

The female department of No. 2 was reorganized on the 1st
of May, 1832, as School No. 4, and placed under the care of
43

674 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

Nancy II. Buckingham. During the summer, No. 5 was opened
at 161 Duane street, under the care of Jane A. Parker, and No.
6, at 108 Columbia street, under the care of John Peterson
both of them colored teachers. At this time the number of
pupils in the schools was as follows : No. 1, 144; No. 2, 272;
No. 3, 385 ; No. 4, 298 ; No. 5, 179 ; No. 6, 161 total, 1,439.
At this period, Charles Reason was assistant in No. 2, Eliza D.
Richards in No. 3, and Fanny Tompkins in No. 4. In June,
1833, School No. 7 was opened at 38 White street, under Levi
Folsom. In September, No. 3 was divided, and the female de-
partment was known as Female School No. 3. Soon afterward,
a school was opened at 24 Laurens street, as a branch of No 7,
under the care of Prince Leveridge.

On the 1st of February, 1834, No. 1 was organized as a boys'
school, James Adams, of No. 2, resigned, and Abel Libolt was
appointed as his successor. Caroline Roe, of No. 1, was trans-
ferred to No. 4, in place of Nancy H. Buckingham, resigned.

While these changes were taking place, and the trustees were
adding to the number of schools, a plan of union with the Pub-
lic School Society had been agitated, and measures taken to con-
summate it. The law restricted the trustees to the payment of
teachers' salaries in the expenditure of their portion of the school
moneys, while the Public School Society was authorized to use
its revenue for all the purposes of the system. This advantage
was obvious, while another consideration was regarded as being
of great importance ; the original object of the Manumission
Society had been secured the slave-trade had been rendered
illegal, the system of slavery had been abolished in the State of
New York, and the only practical object of its existence centered
in its schools. To place these under a more liberal patronage
and a better developed organization, seemed wise as a matter of
policy for the Society, and beneficent for the children of the
colored schools.

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Public School
Society, held November 2, 1832, a communication was received
from the trustees of the African Free Schools, informing them
that they had appointed a committee to confer with a similar
committee on behalf of the Society in relation to a transfer of
their schools, and requesting the appointment of such a com-
mittee. Messrs. Samuel Deinilt, George T. Trimble, John R.

TEAN8FEK OF COLORED SCHOOLS. 675

Hurd, Samuel F. Mott, and Lindley Murray were accordingly
named for the conference.

On the 14th of December the committee reported progress ;
the report was referred back, and Hiram Ketchum was added to
the number.

The committee met repeatedly, and, on February 1, 1833,
a report was laid before the trustees, stating that the proposition
was to transfer .the schools of the Manumission Society to the
Public School Society, on qondition that the latter purchase the
properties at a fair valuation. The real estate consisted of a
house and lots in Mulberry street, near Grand, a house in Wil-
liam street, near Duane, on ground held by a perpetual lease
from the city for school purposes, and the furniture and fixtures
of the schools.

Beside these there were four smaller schools, kept in hired
apartments. The whole number of scholars on register was
1,400, with an average attendance of fifty per cent.

The committee, on a full review of the circumstances,
although persuaded that a separate organization was most expe-
dient if it could be maintained without a diversion of the school
fund from its special purpose by the Manumission Society, recom-
mended the transfer. The same committee was continued to com-
plete the arrangements, William W. Fox being substituted for
John R. Hurd, who resigned.

On the 2d of August, the committee reported that an impedi-
ment had been discovered, by which the Manumission Society
was incapable of conferring a title to its property until an act to
authorize such transfer should be passed by the Legislature, and
recommending that the measure be suspended. The report was
adopted by the board.

The application of the Manumission Society was laid before
the Legislature at the ensuing session, and the act was passed
authorizing the transfer of the real and personal property to the
Public School Society. On the 2d of May, 1834, the facts were
reported to the board, and also that the Common Council had
consented to the transfer of the lease for the William street
property. Copies of the law, the resolution of the Common
Council, and of the agreement between the two Societies were
submitted with the report. The committee were directed to pro-
ceed and complete the duty assigned them.

676 THE PUBLIC BCHOOL SOCIETY.

On the 1st of August, the committee made a final report.
The property had been examined by appraisers chosen by the
joint conference committees, and the value fixed at $12,130.32,
which had been paid by the Treasurer of the Public School
Society.

The Mulberry street property, two lots, 50 by 100 feet, with
a two-story brick house thereon, 35 by 75 feet, was valued at
$9.500.

The William street school-house, one story high, 35 by 59
feet, $1,000.

The fixtures, apparatus, cabinets of specimens, books, &c.,
in these houses, and in seven hired rooms, $1,630.22.

The transfer was not actually completed in all its forms until
some time in July, but as it had been determined in the early
part of the year by the act of the Legislature, the schools were
deemed to be under the care of the Public School Society from
the 1st of May. The salaries of the teachers, and other expen-
ses, were all commenced, on the part of the Society, at that
time, and the teachers' reports for the quarter made to conform
to the transfer.

The names of the teachers then on duty are as follows :

No. 1, Ransom F. Wake, of No. 2 (temporary teacher).

No. 2, male, Abel Libolt, teacher ; Ransom F. Wake and Charles
Reason, assistants.

No. 2, female, Catharine Roe, teacher ; Mary Roe and Maria M.
De Grass, assistants.

No. 3, male, John Brown, teacher.

No. 3, female, Sarah M. Douglass.

No. 4, " Eliza D. Richards.

No. 5, " Fanny Tompkins.

No. 6, " John Peterson, teacher ; Rebecca Peterson, as-
sistant.

No. 7, " Levi Folsom, teacher ; Sarah Freeman, and Sarah
M. Freeman, assistants.

No. 7, " (branch) William Hamilton, teacher ; Elizabeth
Brady, assistant.

At the meeting of the Manumission Society, held on January
13, 1835, the trustees of the schools presented their final report,
asking to be discharged from their duties. The report was ac-

TRANSFER OF COLORED SCHOOLS. 677

cepted, and the labors of the Society in its educational depart-
ment were terminated.

At the time of sale the Treasurer of the Manumission Society
had in his hands an unexpended balance, from the school moneys
of 1833, of $1,063.43, to which was added the whole of the
apportionment for 1834, amounting to $8,241.21, making a total
of $9,304.64, which was paid to the Treasurer of the Public
School Society.

The committee submitted several recommendations in regard
to the reorganization of the colored schools. They were to be
subject to the same by-laws, and conducted on the same system
as the other schools. No. 2, in Mulberry street, was to take
rank as No. 1, while the original No. 1, in William street, was
to be called Primary No. 1, and the other primary schools num-
bered consecutively.

A special committee was also recommended to examine the
schools, and report on such changes in the system of conducting
them as might be expedient and proper.

The report was adopted by the board. The following gentle-
men, members of the Manumission Society, were balloted for
and elected members of the board : Israel Corse, Thomas Bus-
sing, Edmund Willetts, Henry Hinsdale, Charles Walker, Ed-
mund Haviland, Thomas L. Jewett, William L. Stone, and Ira
B. Underbill. These gentlemen, together with Samuel Wood
and Mahlon Day, were appointed the section for the colored
schools.

Messrs. Samuel W. Seton, George T. Trimble, Samuel De-
milt, Ira B. Underbill, and Thomas Bussing were appointed a
committee on the course of studies and examination.

On the first of May, the number of scholars on register was
1,608, with an average attendance the previous quarter of 757.

On the 7th of November, the Committee on Examination and
Change of System laid a report before the board, recommending
that the school in William street be reorganized as Primary No.
1, and placed under the care of a female teacher, and made to
conform to the other primary schools. The report was adopted.

At the time of the transfer there were five primary schools ;
No. 2, had been suspended, and No. 1, in William street, had
been known as African School No. 1. The others were the fol-
lowing : No. 3, in Amity street ; No. 4, at 199 East Broadway ;

678 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

No. 5, 161 Duane street ; No. 6, 108 Columbia street ; and No.
7, 38 White and 24: Laurens streets.

On the 6th of February, 1835, the committee submitted a
long report in which many recommendations were made, relating
to the system of instruction, transfer of schools, and salaries,
with other plans, all of which were referred to the Executive
Committee, with power.

One of the most important measures recommended was the
erection of a new school-house, west of Broadway, for a large
school, to which the pupils of No. 7 should be transferred.

On the 7th of August following, the Committee on Locations
reported the purchase of lots in Laurens street, near Broome, for
the new school-house. The price, $5,250, had been paid for the
property. At the same meeting, the Property Committee was
empowered to procure plans for the building, subject to the
approval of the Executive Committee, and erect the house as
soon as possible.

On the 5th of February, 1836, a proposition for a school
for colored monitors was made to the board, which, with other
measures relative to these schools, was referred to a special com-
mittee, consisting of Samuel F. Mott, Lindley Murray, James
F. Depeyster, Joseph B. Collins, and Robert Pardow. These
gentlemen were to act in connection with the section on African
schools.

One of the most important matters taken into consideration
by the committee was the great decline in the attendance, and
the deterioration in the grade of the schools. They were ac-
counted for, in part, by the fact that the transfer was unpopular
among the colored people, who had always regarded the Manu-
mission Society with a grateful esteem, and the members of
which they had always loved as their devoted friends. In addi-
tion to this, the riots and disorders of the year 1834, by men
who had been prompted by violent leaders to attack prominent
friends of the emancipation movement, had made the parents
very timid about trusting their children at long distances from
their homes. The course of studies and books were also novel,
and the children were not easily trained to the new discipline.
Public meetings were held in order to interest the colored people
in their schools, and Prince Leveridge, a colored agent, was
employed to visit the families throughout the city, in order to

DISSOLUTION OF THE MANUMISSION SOCIETY. 679

press the importance of education upon their attention person-
ally.

These impediments to the successful operation of the schools
gradually wore away, and they, have since that time been con-
ducted with the average success of the white schools of the same
grade.

At the meeting of the board, held May 4, 1838, a petition
from the teachers of these schools was presented, asking that the
name be changed. After some discussion on the matter, the
petition was responded to affirmatively, and the title of the
schools was changed to " Colored," in place of " African."

A proposition was made to the Board of Trustees to open
one or more new schools for colored children, but a report on
the proposition, on the 1st of March, 1839, determined the board
not to entertain it. The Manumission Society, by its committee,
offered to contribute $2,500 toward the cost of a new school,
but the board felt it necessary to decline the liberal donation.

Soon after this period the Manumission Society, feeling that
a-new class of agencies, far more extensive than their own, and
adapted to a different and vastly larger population, had been
called into existence, believing that its work had been prac-
tically accomplished, adopted a resolution to terminate its exist-
ence. It had nobly filled its place as an agent in protecting the
helpless, rescuing such as were unjustly held in bondage, restor-
ing free persons to the liberty of which they had been deprived
by kidnappers, or otherwise, and in educating the children
of the colored people in the city of New York. It had also
witnessed the grand event of emancipation in New York and
New Jersey, and the institution w T hose sorrows and evils had
called it into existence had migrated far beyond its sphere of
action. In a consciousness of pure and exalted motives, self-
sacrificing and laborious action, and hallowed in the sacred
memories of lofty philanthropy and Christian benevolence, it
ceased its labors, to be remembered as one of the noblest and
earliest of American institutions devoted especially to the cause
of humanity and freedom.

680 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XX.
HISTORICAL NOTES OF THE SCHOOLS.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 1.

THE first school of the Public School Society was opened in
a house in Bancker (now Madison) street, on the 17th of May,
1806, and continued there until removed to the Almshouse build-
ing in the Park. The necessity of enlarged accommodations had
induced the Society to apply to the Corporation for a grant, and
an old building, known as the Arsenal, was accordingly donated
for the use of the Society. This, however, proved insufficient,
and measures were taken to secure the erection of a commodious
structure. The efforts of the trustees were successful, and, on
the llth of December, 1809, the building was publicly opened
with appropriate exercises. The President of the Society, De
Witt Clinton, delivered an address on the occasion. William
Smith, teacher.

On the 18th of December, the committee met to receive
applications for admission. A large number of pupils offered
themselves, and the registering proceeded rapidly. On the 26th
of January, 1810, an arrangement having been made with the
Fire Department, a committee, consisting of Robert Wardell,
Peter Sharp, and John Caldwell, attended to superintend the
admission of pupils from that department. Fifty pupils were
to be instructed in the school, the tuition fee being $6 each per
annum. Forty-four were admitted on the 26th, and the remain-
der on the 20th of January.

The school was an object of great interest not only to citi-
zens, but to strangers, and so frequent were their visits as to
interfere with the operations of the school. A regulation ap-
pointing Thursday morning for visitors was adopted none being

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 1. 681

admitted at other hours, except by the special request of a
trustee.

On the 22d of January, 1810, John Missing, afterward prin-
cipal of No. 2, was employed as an assistant in No. 1. In April,
1810, Shepherd Johnston, afterward principal of No. 3, was
employed as a monitor, together with William McAlpin, both
pupils in the school.

At the end of a year the school numbered 550 pupils.

In 1816, Lloyd D. Windsor was appointed principal, in place
of William Smith.

On February 2d, 1813, a committee of twenty-four ladies,
of the Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Associate Reformed,
and Reformed Dutch Churches, attended to catechise the chil-
dren. On the 9th, thirty, and on the 16th, forty ladies attended
to give religious instruction. Bishop Hobart opened the exer-
cises with prayer. One afternoon in the week was devoted to
these religious services.

In 1820, the managers of the American Bible Society were
engaged in selecting a location suitable for their depository, and
it was proposed to sell No. 1 for that purpose. A committee of
the Public School Society was appointed to present a memorial
to the Corporation, asking that a fee-simple of the ground be
vested in the Society, to enable it to sell the property and pur-
chase a less public and noisy location. The application was
referred to the Finance Committee, who reported adversely, and
the proposition failed.

In 1823, the Female Association, which had until that time
sustained the girls' school in No. 1, resolved to close it, and the
trustees immediately reorganized the female department, so that
the girls in that part of the city should not be deprived of in-
struction.

In 1824, the Corporation made an offer to purchase No. 1,
but, after some negotiation, the project was abandoned.

In 1825, John Scudder, the proprietor of the American
Museum, proposed to hire the building on a perpetual lease, at
a rent of 6 per cent, on $30,000, and an annual admission of the
pupils of the schools to the museum, which failed, as the Cor-
poration made a new proposition for the property, and, in 1826,
appointed a committee to obtain a release of the ground to the
city for the purpose of extending the Park. The trustees adopted

682 THE PUBLIC 6CHOOL SOCIETY.

a preamble and resolutions, setting forth, that, as the property
was held for purposes of public instruction, the Society could
not surrender the property without an equivalent, so that the
object of the donors, by whose liberality the building was erected,
might be secured in another place, and calling for a joint board
of live appraisers to make an award. Two appraisers were ap-
pointed by the Common Council, and the Committee of Confer-
ence were authorized to appoint two on behalf of the Society.
Asa Mann and Henry WyckofF, for the Corporation, and Peter
Augustus Jay and E. W. King, for the Society, awarded $26,500
as the value of the lease. The negotiation was not completed.
In 1831, a similar movement met with a similar fate.

In 1832, Messrs. W. D. Coit, J. H. Taylor, and others,
formed an association for the teaching of apprentices, and other
pupils, and applied for the use of No. 1, two evenings in the
week, for an evening school. The Executive Committee granted
the request, subject to the decision of the section of No. 1, by
whom it was deemed inexpedient to grant the building for the
purpose.

In 1833, the Board of Assistant Aldermen appointed a Com-
mittee of Conference to take measures to obtain absolute pos-
session of the property. The committee renewed the offer on
the terms of the joint award previously made, but no result was
reached.

In 1837, the long-vexed question was terminated by the order
of the Common Council to open Centre street. The commis-
sioners allowed the Society $22,000 damages, and left part of
the lot as the property of the Society.

The building in William street, formerly occupied by Colored
School No. 1, had been appropriated for a court-house, to which
the pupils would have been immediately transferred, but for this
occupancy. Until the Society could regain possession of the
premises, the pupils were accommodated in other places. The
boys' school was held in St. Phillip's Church, in Centre street,
and the girls' school in the Brick Church chapel. A new build-
ing was erected in William street, and, on October 16, 1838, the
pupils were transferred from their temporary quarters to the new
house. Appropriate exercises were had, and James I. Roose-
velt, Jr., and Samuel W. Seton addressed the audience.

The teachers of No. 1 have been as follows :

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 2. 683

William Smith, 1806-1816.

Lloyd D. Windsor, 1816-1836, who was removed from his
post by death, August 1.

William Belden, Jr., 1836-1839.

Kichard S. Jacobson, 1839-1848.

William W. Smith entered on duty September, 1848, and
continued until the transfer of the schools to the Board of Edu-
cation, in 1853.

The school was reorganized in 1837, and a female depart-
ment established, under the care of Eliza Harris.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 2.

Col. Henry Rutgers having donated lots of ground to the
" Free-School Society," and a new school being demanded by
the wants of the eastern portion of the city, it was resolved to
erect a building upon the lots so generously granted. A com-
mittee was accordingly appointed, consisting of Col. Henry Rut-
gers, Thomas Collins, and Garrett Van Wagener, to superintend
the erection and opening of the building. It was completed
during the month of October, and opened for the reception of
pupils on the 13th of November, 1811. Forty-seven scholars of
both sexes were admitted, and the number was increased in two
weeks to 197, under the care of John Missing, teacher.

The boys and girls occupied the same room, all being under
the care of one principal. But the number increased so that it
became desirable to separate the scholars into two departments.
The building was two stories high, with a basement, the school
being in the upper story. The first floor was occupied in part
as the residence of the teacher, and in part by one of the schools
of the Female Association. It was proposed, in 1821, to pro-
cure other accommodations for the teacher, extend the school-
room, and separate the boys and the girls. The alterations were
made, and the girls' school was opened on the 1st of November,
under the care of Rebecca Leggett, at a salary of $200.

In 1822, the crowded state of the girls' school suggested an
exchange of apartments the boys being transferred to the lower
floor, and the girls to the upper, which was accordingly done.

684 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL BOCIETY.

In 1823, the school of the Female Association was removed from
the building, and the partitions being taken down, the whole
floor was appropriated to the boys' school. Other alterations
were made, in 1827, to make the house better fitted for the use
of the pupils. The following year (1828), in consequence of
widening Henry street, it became necessary to cut oft' about
eight feet from the front of the building, and to make other
alterations corresponding to the reduced size of the house, all of
which were promptly executed, and the school was reopened on
the 15th of September. It continued in that condition until
1834. when it was rebuilt, being larger and more convenient
than its predecessor, and finished and furnished for a model
school. It was opened on the 1st of November. The primary
department was organized at that time.

The succession of teachers in No. 2 was somewhat rapid after
Mr. Missing resigned his charge, in 1822. He was followed by
Nathaniel C. Hart, who vacated on the 15th of February, 1824,
to assume the charge at the House of Refuge, surrendering his
place to Henry Hart. He continued in his position only a few
months, when he suddenly resigned, in October, much to the
regret of the trustees. Jotham Wilson, a monitor in No. 5, and
Thomas P. Okie, monitor in No. 3 (and subsequently for many
years the principal of No. 6), were placed in charge of the
school. Early in 1825, Mr. Thomas Macy entered upon duty as
teacher. He held the post until 1832, being followed by A. V.
Stout, afterward President of the Shoe and Leather Bank, who
found another position in 1833, leaving William Belden, Sr., in
Jiis place. Henry Kiddle succeeded Mr. Belden in 1849, and
continued to discharge the duties of the principalship until 1856,
when he was elected Assistant City Superintendant.

In the female department, Miss Eunice Dean followed Miss
Leggett, in 1829. She was removed from her labors during
vacation (1831) by death, and Mrs. A. C. Halleck succeeded.
Margaret L. Miller, in 1835 ; in 1837, Miss M. C. Megie ; in
1838, Charlotte L. Wykes, who became Mrs. Sam mis, in 1841,
when Miss Sarah A. Olmsted took the charge until 1844, when
Miss Martha Macy succeeded. In 1849, Hannah G. Barnes fol-
lowed Miss Macy, and, in 1852, resigned her charge to Miss F.
A. Westervelt.

It is worthy of remark that James B. Brinsmade entered the

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 3. 685

Free School Society, and became a member of the " section " of
trustees having charge of No. 2, in 1826, and continued to serve
in that capacity until 1853, a period of twenty-seven years, and
was chosen as one of the trustees under the act of union with
the Board of Education, making his whole term of service until
his death a period of twenty-nine years.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 3.

At the meeting of the Board of Trustees, held on March 6,
1818, information was communicated that a room in a station-
house, owned by the Corporation, at the corner of Hudson and
Christopher streets, in what was then known as the village of
Greenwhich, could probably be obtained for school purposes,
and Thomas C. Taylor, Najah Taylor, and John K. Murray
M-ere appointed to make the inquiry. The committee reported,
in April, that they had made an application for the room, which
had been granted for two years. The same committee was au-
thorized to fit up the premises and propose a teacher. At the
meeting in May, a school was directed to be opened at the
earliest period possible, and Samuel Boyd, Najah Taylor, and
Thomas C. Taylor were appointed a committee of No. 3 to
organize and superintend the school. The school was opened
on the 25th of May, with 51 children, the number being in-
creased to 196 on the 1st of June. On the 12th of June, the
shool was so overcrowded with pupils, that a special committee,
consisting of William Torrey, Lyman Spalding, and Benjamin
Marshall, was appointed to report on the best measures to be
adopted. The committee recommended an application to the
Corporation for the upper floor of the building, which was ob-
tained and fitted up, and 87 new scholars admitted up to the
7th of August. The large number of pupils made it necessary
to relieve the school, and it was proposed to send such of them
as resided below Spring street to No. 1 ; but the parents objected
so strongly, that it was deemed advisable to obtain separate
accommodations for the girls' school. In 1819, " The Eagle
Factory " was proposed for a temporary purpose, and "William
Torrey, Isaac Collins, Ezra Weeks, Leonard Bleecker, and Oliver

686 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

H. Hicks wore appointed to report in general on the subject.
The report recommended the erection of a building on the lots
owned by the Society, deeded by Trinity Church, April, 11,
1815, which report was adopted by the board, but reconsidered
at the next meeting, and a committee appointed to confer with
the vestry of Trinity Church relative to the property, certain
conditions of the transfer being an impediment to the plans of
the Society. In 1820, the conference resulted in the sale of the
property to the Society unconditionally for $1,250.

In April, a committee was appointed to obtain estimates,
which were deemed too high, and, at the following meeting of
the board, Stephen P. Britton, Whitehead Hicks, and William
T. Slocum were appointed for a similar purpose, under instruc-
tions. The committee reported a plan, which was adopted, for
a house 45 by 80 feet, the whole expense, including fences, &c.,
not to exceed $6,500. The report was adopted, and "William
Torrey, Najah Taylor, and Samuel Boyd were named as the
Building Committee.

The building was erected, and opened for boys on the 15th
of October. The pupils assembled in the old rooms at 9 o'clock,
369 being present, were transferred to the new house, and were
all engaged at their usual exercises at 10 o'clock.

On the following Monday, the 22d of the month, the girls,
under Sarah Field, the teacher selected for the purpose, were
transferred to their apartments in the building. On the 2d of
November, 2T9 female pupils were on the register.

The work having been completed within the estimates, and
only $217.50 of extra work, the excess over the appropriation
amounted to only $109.94.

In September, 1821, a committee, consisting of William Tor-
rey, William T. Slocum, and Edward Kirby, was appointed to
have the basement fitted up for school purposes.

On the 10th of September, 1824, General La Fayette visited
No. 3, and witnessed the exercises in both departments. The
Mayor, some of the Aldermen, and many visitors were present.
General La Fayette witnessed a review of all the pupils of the
public schools in the Park on the afternoon of the same day.
He was unanimously elected a member of the Society at a meet-
ing of the Board of Trustees.

Shepherd Johnston had the charge of the school until March

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 3. 687

22, 1825, when he left it, to take the principalship of the junior
department of the " New York High School," in Crosby street,
between Grand and Broome.

Benjamin F. Hart succeeded Mr. Johnston, and continued in
the position until October 18, 1835, when lie resigned. Dr.
David Patterson assumed the charge of the school, and remained
on duty through the whole period of its control by the Society,
and passed under the supervision of the new school officers at
the time of its transfer to the Board of Education.

Miss Sarah Field, in the girls' school, became Mrs. Bowron,
in May, 1821, and resigned on the 15th, giving way to her sister,
Maria Field, who had charge until 1825, when Miss Catharine
R. Dean succeeded. In 1827, the school was placed under the
care of Miss Frances M. Hart, till 1831, when Miss J. F.
McCormick followed, and was succeeded, in 1832, by Isabella
McCormick, who remained until transferred under the new
system.

In November, 1832, Floyd Smith and others applied for
permission to use No. 3 for an^ evening school, to be taught
gratuitously, for the benefit of apprentices and others.

Joseph Lancaster visited the school on the 17th of Septem-
ber, 1838, and left the following minute on the visitors' book of
the boys' school :

Ninth month, 17. Joseph Lancaster. Much pleased with the order, obe-
dience, attention, and mental interest displayed in this school. He can only
record his general satisfaction, being too much exhausted to enter now into
particulars ; but he truly rejoices in the prosperity which he has seen, and
hopes it will go on and increase. It is by the perfection and example of such
schools as this that he hopes knowledge and civilization will extend over
the world,

Far as the ocean waters roll,

Wide as the heavens are spread.

The entry in the record of the female school is as follows :

Ninth month, 17. Joseph Lancaster. Highly delighted with the behav-
ior of the excellent pupils in this school. The children and youth in the
New York schools may be called the children of attention. Their ears and
their hearts seem generally, if not universally, open to instruction, and they
eminently distinguish themselves as good listeners. The pupils in this
school are so in a most remarkable degree. I find so much to congratulate
the public and the friends of these schools respecting their condition, that

688 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

I am cautious of repeating the same expressions relative to " the soul's calm
sunshine," and the heartfelt joy which I have experienced in every school
that I have been in ; yet, on expressing my feelings here, and my satisfac-
tion in other schools, I can truly say, the current of hopes and the bright-
ness of blessings in prospective from the schools, for the people of another
day, have flowed on, as the poet expresses himself, repecting other and
higher themes, " One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze." I leave my best
wishes and cheering approbation for the children, youth, monitors, and
teachers of this school, and if I could leave as many blessings as good
wishes, they would be abundant indeed.

Mr. Johnston, the original teacher of this school, after an
absence of a quarter of a century, returned to visit the scene of
his early labors, and left the following minute :

June 12th, 1851. With feelings of pleasure I enter this room in which
I have spent so many delightful days. Things, however, I found much
changed ; the whole appearance of the room was altered for the better, and,
by the liberality of the present board, the worthy head of this department
enjoys advantages which I never had reason to suppose would be extended
to the public schools. However, with all of these advantages, I still remain
strongly attached to our old system.

8. JOHNSTON.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 4.

In the early part of 1817, Adam Brown, Noah Brown, and
Peter Ogilvie addressed a petition to the Society, and a com-
mittee was appointed to report the measures necessary to secure
the erection of a new school-house in the neighborhood of what
was then called " Manhattan Island," Corlear's Hook. Thomas
Eddy, James Palmer, Henry Eckford, Noah Brown, and White-
head Hicks were named for the purpose. They reported that
Adam Brown, Noah Brown, Peter Ogilvie, and Henry Eckford
would give two lots, and that another could be purchased for
about $400. Lots in Columbia street were selected, but after-
ward rejected, and the committee discharged. In March, 1818,
John Murray, Thomas Taylor, Samuel Wood, Whitehead Hicks,
and Leonard Bleecker were appointed to select lots in the north-
eastern part of the city. On the 1st of May, the committee re-
ported the purchase of three lots on the south side of Kivington
street, between Pitt and Eidge streets, for $700 each. The report
was approved, and the committee directed to close tho purchase.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 4. 689

John Murray, Jr., John E. Murray, and Thomas C. Taylor were
named as the Building Committee, to report plans and estimates.
The report not being satisfactory, John Pintard was added. In
September, the report of the committee was submitted and
adopted, and the same gentlemen were continued for the super-
intendence of the new building. An additional committee was
subsequently appointed to solicit contributions toward the build-
ing, from the residents in the eastern part of the city. The
upper room was finished for occupancy, and opened on the 1st
of May, 1819, with 133 scholars, under the care of Charles Pic-
ton, from England a gentleman sent by request of the Society,
as one specially qualified to illustrate the Lancasterian system
as there perfected. Dr. Lyman Spalding, James Palmer, and
George T. Trimble composed the School Committee. On the
1st of June, 200 boys and 156 girls had entered the school. On
Monday, August 30th, 1819, the girls' school was opened with
182 pupils, under the care of Mrs. Picton.

In 1820, the basement was finished and furnished for school
purposes, and occupied by the lower classes of the boys' school,
in November. A bell was put up in 1821.

Charles Picton resigned, in 1824, to return to England, being
succeeded by E. Wheaton, who remained only until the follow-
ing year, when he accepted an appointment in the Mechanics'
School. In July, he resigned, to be followed by Henry A.
Caoper.

On the 31st of October, 1828, Mr. Cooper terminated his
services in No. 4, and Mr. S. Hammond took the charge, which
he continued until 1834, when Seneca Durand became principal,
but he was transferred to another school, and was succeeded by
John Patterson, who resigned on the 5th of May, 1852, when
Charles W. Feeks succeeded, and remained on duty until after
the transfer of the schools to the Board of Education.

In 1820, Mrs. Picton resigned her charge, and Eunice Dean
was appointed to the vacancy, which she continued to fill until
1823, when Caroline B. Knapp succeeded, and continued to dis-
charge her duties until 1836, when Mary Doane took charge,
and filled the position until 1850. Catharine White succeeded
her, under whose care the school passed to the Board of Edu-
cation.

44 >

690 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 5.

At a meeting of tlie Board of Trustees, held on May 11,
1821, a committee, consisting of Leonard Bleecker and Najah
Taylor, was appointed to procure lots from Stephen Van Rens-
selaer, at some point betweqn Broadway and the Bowery, and
below Bleecker street. The committee were unable to secure
the lots desired. On the 13th of March, 1822, the Bethel Bap-
tist Church having taken measures to secure an extraordinary
proportion of the school moneys, the board deemed it advisable
to anticipate the proposed school under the care of that church,
by appointing a new committee, and Isaac Collins, Rensselaer
Havens, William T. Slocum, John L. Bowne, and James Palmer
were directed to purchase lots near the Cathedral, and procure
estimates for a building. On the 18th of the same month, at a
special meeting, the committee reported the purchase of three
lots on Mott street, near Prince, for $2,300, which was approved,
and the proper authority given to complete the conveyance.

The committee were authorized to erect a school-house, at a
cost of $8,000, on these lots, Samuel Boyd being added to the
committee. The lots cost $2,295.94. Contracts were made with
Rogers & Price, masons, and "Woodruff & Thompson, carpen-
ters, for the work, and a loan of $10,000, secured by mortgage
on Nos. 4 and 5, was authorized to pay for the structure. The
committee were directed to act as temporary School Committee
for the organizing and opening of the school, and Joseph Belden
..was chosen teacher of the boys, and Mary Otis of the girls. The
building was erected and completed at a cost of $9,591.09, in-
cluding the furniture, &c., making the whole cost, including the
land, $11,887.03.

The school was opened on the 28th of October, and, on the
1st of December, the number of pupils was 529 328 boys, and
201 girls.

In September, 1832, Joseph Brewster, John H. Smith, Charles
Durfee, and others applied for the use of No. 5 for a free evening
school, on Friday evenings, for colored persons, which was
granted.

In December, 1832, Francis D. Allen and others made ap-
plication for the use of No. 5, three evenings each week, for a
free school for apprentices, &c., which was granted. In. October,

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 6. 691

1833, the section organized an evening school under their own
care, the average attendance weekly being from 75 to 103.

In 1826, at the time of reorganizing the school system, and
the appointment of " sections " of the trustees, the section for
N. 5 consisted of Isaac Collins, Israel Dean, Dennis McCarthy,
J. Smyth Kogers, Knowles Taylor, and James F. Depeyster.

Mr. Joseph Belden, the first teacher, filled his post until
September 16, 1828, when he was transferred to No. 11, when
Mr. John Tuomy succeeded, and discharged the duties until lie
surrendered the school to Monmouth B. Hart, in 1832. It passed,
in 1836, into the hands of Joseph McKeon, who was afterward
City Superintendent, and who, on his resignation as teacher, was
followed, on the 2d of November, 1846, by Michael J. O'Don-
nell. Mr. O'Donnell remained until the transfer.

At the close of 1823, Mary Otis resigned her post, and Miss
Eliza Covill succeeded her in the early part of 1824, but re-
mained on duty only a few months, when Catharine Dean took
charge of the school. Miss Dean's connection with the school
was brief, and, in 1826, Miss Maria M. Field took her place.
She became Mrs. Bowron, and remained till 1834, when Sarah
A. Olmsted succeeded in the chair till 1841, and was followed
by Margaret T. Henratty, who yielded her place to Eliza Ann
Field, in 1848. In 1851, Miss Henrietta C. Shepard took
charge, but resigned, the following year, to Charlotte A. Purdy.

In March, 1845, the Female Association surrendered the
school they conducted in the basement of No. 5, and a primary
department was organized, under the care of the section.

No. 5 was used as the depository for some years, until the
erection of the Trustees' Hall, now the Hall of the Board of
Education. It was also used for the normal school, until it was
removed to the Trustees' Hall.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 6.

From a very early period in the history of the Society, the
children of the Almshouse department had been educated by
the Society, until 1823, at which time that establishment was
removed from the City Hall Park to Bellevue, the premises of

692 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

which were at the. time very extensive, but which have eince
been much reduced by the extension of streets to the river, and
the erection of dwellings and other buildings on the new high-
ways. This transfer removed the children from the care of the
Society, and it became therefore a matter of anxiety to the trus-
tees to afford instruction to them in their new locality.

At the meeting of the Board of Trustees, June 6th, 1823, a
proposition was submitted to make application to the Corpo-
ration for permission to establish a school at " Bellevue Hospital "
for the benefit of the children in the Almshouse department.
The proposition was referred to a committee, consisting of Isaac
Collins and Rensselaer Havens. The committee had an inter-
view with the Mayor, and other public officers, and the plan
being regarded with approbation, a memorial was reported by
the committee for adoption by the board, to be laid before the
Corporation. The recommendation was adopted, and the ap-
plication was made. The Corporation granted the authority,
and, at a meeting of the Society, the trustees were directed to
establish the said school.

At a meeting of the trustees on the 12th of August, Isaac
Collins, William T. Slocum, John R. Hurd, Lindley Murray,
and Joseph Grinnell were appointed to select a teacher. Dr.
Charles Belden was chosen for the position. Rooms were pre-
pared and furnished with the necessary fixtures and apparatus,
and the school was opened on the 27th of October, with 270
boys and girls, under the temporary charge of Shepherd Johns-
ton, of No. 3, and monitors drafted from other schools.

In 1826, when the sections were organized, Samuel Wood,
Heman Averill, Samuel F. Mott, Arthur Burtis, and N. C.
Everitt were appointed as the first section for No. 6. There
were at the time 268 children in the Almshouse, with 13 pupils
outside of the institution.

The children were removed from Bellevue to the " Nursery "
at the " Long Island Farms," in August, 1842 ; thence to Black-
well's Island, in April 1847, and were finally removed to Ran-
dall's Island, the present location, April 25, 1848.

In August, 1825, Dr. Belden, the principal, was removed by
death, and Albert De Montfredy succeeded. Francis Windsor
took charge of the school in 1826. In 1829, during the sickness
of Mr. Windsor, his brother, Lloyd D. Windsor, had temporary

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 6. 693

charge, and subsequently William Guest supplied for Mr. Wind-
sor. Thomas P. Okie succeeded Mr. Windsor, May 1, 1831,
and continued in charge of the school until the transfer of the
system.

The boys and girls were separated into two departments, in
1839, Miss Jane Steel having had charge of the primary school.
Miss Anna Balentine was appointed principal of the primary
department, in 1839 ; she became Mrs. Guest, in 1840, and was
followed by Miss Susan Jackson, who remained until the close
of the schools under the Society.

In July, 1853, the .schools passed to the care of the ward
school officers of the Twelfth Ward. On the 17th of August,
the school officers held a meeting, at which the "section " of the
trustees of the Society were present by invitation. The section
consisted of Peter Cooper, Joseph Curtis, Linus W. Stevens,
and John Davenport. A consultation was had, the schools were
visited, addresses made, and the only section of the trustees of
the Public School Society which then remained bade farewell in
an official manner to their interesting charge, and surrendered
the schools they had so long cherished and sustained to the hands
of the new guardians.

By reference to the minute-book, it will be seen that Mr.
Lancaster did not omit this school in his examination of the sys-
tem. His remarks are as follows :

Tenth month [October] 3, 1838. Joseph Lancaster considers this school
to be very much like a wire-drawing machine, which can draw out a small
quantity of silver or other metal to great fineness and amazing extent.

If a grain of gold be mixed with a pound of silver, it is said that the
sign of the gold will be found visible, to all the extent of wire-drawn silver.

Let the wisdom of human knowledge be esteemed as silver ; let the
knowledge and fear of God be as gold. Oh, may it please the Giver of
every good and perfect gift that the pure gold may shine on all the silver in
this school, and in every other in New York. The effect of this (figurative)
mixture in this school has been very precious and acceptable to my mind.
When I do die, I think it will be in more peace for having seen the poor,
dear children of this school so happily and usefully provided for in regard
to order and learning.

Delighted with the school, and rendered truly happy by the good harvest
springing up under the teacher's judicious care. As a father and a friend,
I wish him and his very interesting charge " Good speed in the name of the
Lord." Peace be with all his exertions, prosperity with all his labors, and
the blessing of heaven with all this family of children.

694 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

I have been accompanied in this visit by a great-grandson, Charles Gay-
lor, who seemed as much pleased as myself.

I am truly pleased to see the lively, active attention and diligence of the
monitors. They appear to me like the tools of a superior -workman, well
kept, clean, acute, polished, and in good condition for their work. The
monitors of drafts look like men and women, and do their work in a work-
manlike style. I am richly rewarded with pleasure and peace for the time
given up to visit this school, so highly creditable to all concerned, and so
honorable to the city of New York, and its humble, praiseworthy, benevo-
lent institutions and public spirit.

The following noteworthy memorial is found in the minute-
book, under date of April 12, 1852 :

Eleven years ago to-day seven trustees assembled at the Brick Church,
corner of Chatham and Nassau streets, for the purpose of visiting this school,
then at Long Island Farms. It was in the midst of one of the severest snow-
storms of the season. It had already fallen eight inches. In two carriages
we crossed the Grand street ferry to Williamsburgh, thence up East River,
crossing the toll-bridge over Newtown Creek, arriving at the school a few
minutes after 3 p. M. We found every thing in good order, and had an ex-
amination that compensated us for all our toil and expenses.

We returned the same route we came. Storm still continuing and un
abated. We did not arrive at our homes until quite dark. I allude to this
circumstance (it being its eleventh anniversary), trusting that some who
come after us will read this and be inspired with the zeal that impelled such
men as Samuel Demilt and others to pursue and persevere in a cause with
an ardor that nothing but duty and public good could have induced to leave
their comfortable firesides in such a storm as prevailed on the 12th of April,
1841.

The trustees present on the occassion alluded to, were Samuel
Demilt, Heman Averill, Timothy Hedges, Frederic De Peyster,
Samuel W. Seton, William Kockwell, M.D., and Burritt Sher-
wood, M.D.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 7.

The great controversy, growing out of the action of the trus-
tees of the Bethel Baptist Church respecting the school fund,
heing terminated, the trustees of the Public School Society were
prepared to press forward with greater energy and usefulness,
the integrity of the common school fund having been secured by

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 7. 695

the law of 1825. At the meeting of the trustees, held May 6th
of that year, a committee of five was appointed to report on the
expediency of hiring, purchasing, or erecting buildings for addi-
tional schools, and to select locations. James I. Roosevelt, Jr.,
J. F. Depeyster, George T. Trimble, E. 0. Cornell, and Stephen
Allen were chosen as the committee. A location was selected
and reported upon in Anthony street, and, on the 16th of Sep-
tember, a location in Chrystie street, between Hester and Pump
streets, the name of the latter being afterward changed to "Walker,
and now known as Canal street. The report was adopted, and
"William "W. Fox, James Palmer, and Isaac Collins were named
as the Building Committee. Plans and estimates were submitted
at a special meeting, held on the 23d of the same month, which
were adopted, and the committee authorized to proceed, Stephen
Allen being added to the committee. On the 6th of January,
1826, Leonard Bleecker, George T. Trimble, and Lindley Mur-
ray were appointed a committee to select a teacher for the new
school. On the 3d of February, Stephen R. Kirby was reported
as the choice of the committee. Frances C. Coit was subse-
quently appointed to take charge of the female department.

On the 7th of April, the Building Committee reported that
the house would be ready for early occupancy, and Najah Taylor
and George T. Trimble % were assigned to take charge of the
opening and organization of the school.

The school was opened on the 1st of May, 1826, with 87
pupils. The house was erected by J. & J. Bunting, masons, for
$4,500, and Isaiah Macey, carpenter, for $5,886.62. The total
cost, including a few items for extra work, was $10,761.20.

In October, Messrs. Joseph Belden and Stephen R. Kirby
applied for permission to use No. 7 for an evening school, to be
under their care. This appears to be the earliest effort to estab-
lish an evening school under the supervision of the Society.
The teachers were to receive compensation from the pupils, as a
private remuneration ; but they desired the use of the school-
house OIL account of their own relations to the Society, as well
as the convenience of the building.

In 1830, Andrew V. Stout, who afterward became principal
of No. 13, in Madison street, was appointed monitor general.
During a period of temporary absence on the part of Mr. Kirby,
he had the charge of the school, and the " section " remark in

696 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the minute-book, " The school has been satisfactorily kept up
by Andrew V. Stout, the monitor general of the school." On
the 1st of February, he left No. 7 to go to a private school as
teacher. Thomas P. Okie, then of No. 12, succeeded him for a
short time, when he returned to his former post, and Robert S.
Mills took his place.

Mr. Kirby resigned, in 1833, and was succeeded, on the 1st
of April, by William P. Lyon, who surrendered his post in May,
1835, and, on the llth of that month, John W. Ketchum, the
present Superintendent of the House of Refuge, took charge of
the school. Mr. Lyon gave full satisfaction to the trustees, but
he did not like the requisition of the extra service in the evening
schools, and preferred resigning his position to a compulsory sac-
rifice of his evenings to school duties, which conflicted with other
arrangements. Mr. Ketchum remained in the school until May,
1846, when he assumed the care of the House of Refuge, and
William H. Reuck followed, and filled the post until after the
transfer of the schools to the Board of Education.

Frances C. Coit resigned the charge of the girls' school, Sep-
tember 1, 1836, and Mary A. Belden was appointed to the suc-
cession. Much to the regret of the Society and to the friends
of the school, she was compelled by ill health to resign on the
20th of March, 1839, and was called to rest from earthly labors
on the 28th of the same month. The following tribute to her
memory appears in the annual report of that year :

When the excellent of the earth are removed from time to eternity, some
notice of the fact seems due as a record of the feelings of those who knew
and appreciated the worth of the departed ; and the trustees cannot close
this report without expressing the regret they feel at the loss this institution
and the public have sustained in the recent decease of Mrs. MARY ANK BEL-
DEN, late principal of Girls' School No. 7. Her peculiar skill in governing
children with mildness, and her success in communicating information to
them, were conspicious and gratifying to the trustees through the long
course of years she was in their employ. Early imbued with the principles
of piety, the moral and religious influences exerted by her over the three
hundred girls daily attending her school, cannot but have a lasting effect on
many of their susceptible minds ; and in reference to the whole character
and course of Mary Ann Belden as a public school teacher, the trustees may
say, " Many teachers have done well, but thou excellest them all."

Hannah N. Collins succeeded Mrs. Belden, but held the
position only till 1842, in the early part of which year she was

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 7. 697

followed by Miss Sarah Ann Bunker, who remained until the
schools were transferred.

On the 7th of September, 1837, N. P. Beers entered on duty
as assistant monitor, and, by promotion, became principal of No.
15, in Fifth street, which position he now holds.

On May 6, 1847, Thomas Palmer, first monitor, was trans-
ferred to the First "Ward school, and Lafayette Obey, present
principal of No. 14, succeeded him.

On the 22d of July, 1853, the section of the trustees met
officially to bid farewell to their charge. The gentlemen present
were William H. Macy, John T. Adams, and George T. Trimble.
They distributed sixty-eight certificates in the boys' school, and
fifty-four in the girls' school. Mr. Trimble made the following
entry in the minute-book :

This act, with some valedictory remarks, closes the official connection
of the section with this school. The writer of this minute having been
attached to it since it was- opened, on the 1st of May, 1826, and made the
opening minute on that day. William H. Macy has been in this section
since 1837, and John T. Adams since 1840. The other members for shorter
periods. Some much respected members of this section only closed their
labors with their lives. These recollections, with the reflections arising
therefrom, cause the events of this occasion to impress our minds with great
seriousness, accompanied by the hope that our labors have not been in vain.

Mr. Lancaster visited this school several times, and it was
on his way from No. 7, which he had just left, that he met with
the casualty which resulted in his death a day or two afterward.
The following are the memoranda he left on the records of the
school :

Ninth month, 6. Joseph Lancaster visited this school, and was most
highly pleased with the exemplary behavior and order of the very interest-
ing boys and youth who assemble here for instruction. In this school he
has found, felt, and seen abundance to delight a father's eye and gratify the
best feeling of a father's heart. If ie is to take youth like these as a speci-
men of American native character, truly he may congratulate the citizens
of New York and the American nation, that they possess youth of such high
hopes and favorable capacity. May they ever do the same honor to their
teachers and parents, and the same credit to these schools, and may the love
and peace of God dwell with them, and they all become as diamonds of the
purest water, enclosed within the pearl of greatest price.

Ninth month, 6. Joseph Lancaster. The most delightful conduct and
mental attention, good behavior and wise deportment of the highly esti-

698 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

rnable children and youth in this school, merit from me a tribute of respect
which seems almost inexpressible. I have often been highly delighted and
gratified with schools, but never more so than in my visits to this school.
I congratulate their parents, friends, and teachers on the principles of good
conduct, the love of learning, and also rectitude and virtue which I am sat-
isfied are among them. There now are children and youth in this school
who do the highest credit to themselves, to their teachers, and to these in-
stitutions that the most excellent conduct can do. May they go on and
increase and prosper, till heaven shall rejoice and earth be glad for them ;
till knowledge shall abound in perfection among them, and they grow "up
to maturity, like their Reedemer, in favor with God and man.

Ninth month, 25. Joseph Lancaster. School much increased. We love
to see bees in swarms ; it is a sure sign there will be more honey. Found
the pupils as busy as bees at their writing) with minds intent on working
up as much improvement as possible.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 8.

The Committee on Locations for new schools, appointed in
1825, continued their labors, and, in April, 1826, recommended
the purchase of lots in Grand street, between Laurens and
Wooster streets, 75 by 100 feet. On the 19th, the committee
reported that the purchase had been made for $5,000, where-
upon Isaac Collins, George T. Trimble, William W. Fox, and
Robert C. Cornell were appointed to report plans and estimates
for a building to be erected thereon. On the 29th, the report
was laid before the board, adopted, and William W. Fox, Isaac
Collins, and James Palmer were constituted a Building Com-
mittee. On the 6th of October, Messrs. Isaac Collins, Stephen
Hasbrouck, Daniel Lord, Eleazar Lord, and Samuel Boyd were
appointed section for No. 8. The school was opened on the 1st
of November, and during the first quarter there were admitted,
in the boys' department, 144: pay, and 159 free scholars total,
303 ; in the girls' department, 132 pay and 44 free scholars
total, 176. The school opened under the care of C. B. Sherman,
in the male, and Eunice Dean, in the female department.

On the 4th of April, 1827, the building was considerably
injured by fire, but the repairs were promptly made, and the
school reopened on the 3d of May following.

Mrs. Joanna Bethune, on behalf of herself and other ladies,

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 9. 699

applied, in. May, 1827, for the use of the basement for an " in-
fant school," under their care. The application was referred to
the Executive Committee. The important improvements in the
system growing out of this effort, are detailed in the chapter
devoted to that subject. The "junior department" was organ-
ized on June 4th, by the section. On the llth of May, 1829,
the section adopted a resolution declaring it expedient to discon-
tinue the "junior department," and establish an " infant school."
The organization was found to be inefficient, and, in December,
1830, it was changed into a " primary school," in compliance
with the new plans of the board.

In May, 1831, there were on register 236 boys, 270 girls, and
239 in the primary department.

Mr. C. B. Sherman, the first principal, resigned in Septem-
ber, 1841, and was followed by Charles S. Pell,' who was suc-
ceeded by Cornelius A. Cooper, on the 1st of March, 1852, who
remained in the school and passed with it to the jurisdiction of
the Board of Education.

Eunice Dean, the first teacher of the girls' school, remained
until 1830, when she was followed by Elizabeth Dean, who re-
mained untill 1833, when Elizabeth Winans took the charge of
the school. In 1834, Miss Harriet Bartine was appointed to the
vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Miss Winans, and con-
tinued in her position until the transfer of the school to the ward
officers.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 9

This school was organized by the vestry of. St. Michael's
Church (Episcopal), at Bloomingdale, and was continued under
their care until the enactment of the law excluding church
schools from participating in the school fund, passed November,
19, 1824, when it was about to be abandoned- for want of suffi-
cient income. At the solicitation of the rector, Rev. William
Richmond, the situation of the school was laid before the Board
of Trustees of the Society, by James F. Depeyster and Stephen
Allen, on May 5, 1826, and a committee was appointed, consist-
ing of Stephen Allen, James F. Depeyster, and George T. Trim-

700 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ble, to examine and report on the expediency of establishing
schools in the Twelfth Ward. The committee reported, at, the
meeting on the 12th of the same month, that they found 48 chil-
dren in school (22 boys and 26 girls), who were taught by Mr.
Thomas C. Richmond, son of the rector, who had volunteered
his services gratuitously since the withdrawal of the school fund.
The committee recommended the employment of a teacher for
not more than six months, at a salary of $30 a month, and the
adoption of the school as one of the charges of the Public School
Society. Jotharn "Wilson was appointed teacher, and entered on
duty on the 22d of May. Stephen Allen and James F. Depeys-
ter were appointed section for No. 9.

The negotiations relative to the other schools in the ward
never resulted in any change or transfer, and the action in the
case is not important to the reader.

In July, 1827, the committee were directed to ascertain
whether a donation of land for a school site could be obtained ;
and if not, to purchase a suitable location at a cost of not over
$500, and the Building Committee were directed to erect thereon
a house not to cost more than $2.600. A plot of ground, 100
feet square, was purchased for $250, on Eighty-second street,
between Tenth and Eleventh avenues. A difficulty arising, the
Building Committee did not immediately proceed with their
work, and new apartments were hired, which afforded better ac-
commodations, until the impediments were removed. In 1830,
a committee on the state of No. 9 recommended the erection of
the school-house, and the Building Committee were directed to
proceed and put up a house not to cost more than $1,500. The
instructions were obeyed, and the house was finished and occu-
pied on the 19th of July.

On the 19th of March, 1830, Dr. Abraham V. Williams was
elected a trustee of the Public School Society, and being a resi-
dent of Bloorningdale, he was able to give the personal super-
vision required, and which the other members of the section
could not give. Dr. Williams was immediately placed on the
section of No. 9. Robert Sedgwick was also soon afterward
added to the section, so that it consisted of Messrs. Allen, De-
peyster, Williams, and Sedgwick.

Mr. Wilson resigned his post as teacher on the 1st of May,
1832, and was succeeded by Seneca Durand. On February 5,

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 10. 701

1833, the school had increased to 69, and Dr. Williams, in his
minute made that day, remarks the pleasing and unusual cir-
cumstance that every scholar on the register was in attendance.

In June, 1834, Mr. Durand was transferred to No. 4, and
succeeded by Mr. J. P. Hoyt on the 24th of that month. He
remained in charge until August, 1844, when Benjamin G. Bruce,
who had been his assistant for several years, was promoted to
the post of principal.

In 1850, the female department was organized, and Miss
Mary Kelly, who had been assistant in the school, was appointed
principal.

Under the care of Mr. Bruce and Miss Kelly, the school
passed to the jurisdiction of the Board of Education, July, 1853.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 10.

The Committee on NeV Schools, appointed May 6, 1825, con-
sisted of James I. Roosevelt, Jr., James F. Depeyster, George
T. Trimble, E. C. Cornell, and Stephen Allen. Previous to
making the report in favor of 'No. 7, in Chrystie street, they had
selected a location in Anthony street, but the negotiations were
of a protracted nature. In September, 1826, the same recom-
mendation was repeated, and a conditional resolution, authoriz-
ing the erection of a house, was adopted. In November follow-
ing, a location in Church street, between Duane and Thomas
streets, was suggested and approved. In January, 1827, the
committee reported that they had not been able to obtain the
lots, but that three lots in Duane street, 75 by 100 feet, could be
purchased for a site for the new school. The committee were
authorized to make the purchase, the price being $8,300, and a
right of dower of $50 per annum. The Building Committee was
directed to make contracts for the erection of a house on the lots,
similar to No. 8, with such improvements as might be deemed
expedient. The contracts were made with J. & J. Bunting, ma-
sons, and Israel Macy, carpenter, the whole cost, including fix-
tures, &c., being $12,488.50. On the 13th of October, Benjamin
L. Swan, J. Groshon, Thomas E. Mercein, and J. H. Taylor
were appointed as the school section ; and on the 1st of Novem-

702 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

ber, 1827, Ko. 10 was opened for the reception of pupils, under
the care of Albert De Montfredy, in the boys' department, and
Eliza J. Cox, in the girls' department.

In 1832, Messrs. W. D. Coit, J. H. Taylor, and others ap-
plied for the use of ~No. 10 two evenings a week, for a free even-
ing school for apprentices and others. The application was
referred to the section, with power.

In 1853, the debts of the Society being considerable in
amount, and a large school under the care of the ward officers
having been erected in the neighborhood, the Board of Trustees
were induced to consider the expediency of selling No. 10. This
was rendered the more advisable in consequence of the change
that had taken place in the vicinity, many of the dwellings hav-
ing given place to business establishments of various kinds, and
the resident population removed to other portions of the city.

At this time, the bill for the union of the two systems of
education the Public School Society and the Board of Educa-
tion was pending in the Legislature, and, after a full discussion,
it was deemed necessary to sell the property. The Board of
Education had failed to appropriate all that the Society required,
^and tUe floating debt was on the increase, and the ultimate ex-
tinction of the Society was a matter of discussion and anticipa-
tion. The Finance Committee were therefore to take steps
toward the sale, provided the bill did not become a law. If the
bill passed, and received the Executive signature, the property
would be transferred to the Board of Education. The bill failed
of its final reading, and the committee sold the premises to
Thomas. Hope for $39,900, on the 31st of May, at auction. At
an extra session of the Legislature, held a few weeks after the
sale, the school bill became a law, but too late to reverse the
sale.

Teachers : Mr. Albert De Montfredy conducted the school
until 1836, when K. "W. Starr succeeded him ; and, in 1852,
Charles B. Stout became principal, under whom the school was
transferred to the Board of Education.

Miss Eliza J. Cox remained in the girls' department until
183i. She was succeeded by Harriet E. Phelps ; and the teach-
ers of this school successively were Angeline Slater, 1837 ;
Maria G. Balsh, 1838 ;' and Maria F. Savage, 1851.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 11. 703

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 11.*

The Committee on New Schools recommended, on the 8th of
September, 1826, in connection with No. 10, the purchase of lots
in Wooster street, between Houston and Bleecker streets. The
recommendation was adopted, and the lots purchased.

On the 1st of June, 1827, the Building Committee was in
structed to lay the foundation of a house similar to No. 10, on
these lots. At the meeting on the 6th of July, the committee
reported the work commenced. Contracts were made with the
builders of No. 10, and the house completed and occupied on the
15th of September, 1828. The total cost of the house and ap-
pointments was $12,400.

On the 1st of August, Eobert C. Cornell, Eensselaer Havens,
and George T. Trimble were appointed a temporary section for
No. 11. The school was organized under the care of Joseph
Belden, of No. 5, with 40 boys, and 31 girls in charge of Mary
Shourt. On the 1st of November, the number had increased to
82 boys and 92 girls, all " pay scholars."

Mr. Belden died on September 12, 1834, and William H.
Brownne became principal, and remained in his post until his
death, March 31, 1844, when Michael J. O'Donnell succeeded.
During the early part of 1847, Mr. O'Donnell was transferred
to No. 5, and George Moore was appointed to fill the vacancy.
He served during the remaining period of the existence of the
Society.

Miss Shourt, in the girls' school, was succeeded, in 1833, by
Caroline Carpenter, who resigned in 1840, when Sophia Carpen-
ter temporarily filled the position, giving way, in a few months,
to Anna M. Bussell. Miss Bussell was followed, in 1843, by
Sarah Field, who had long been an assistant in the school, and
who was on duty until the Society and its schools were merged
into the ward school system.

The primary department was organized in the early part of
1832.

The following entry, by Hon. J. S. Buckingham, is on the
minute-book :

Friday, December 8, 1837. I have had the pleasure to visit, to-day, in

* Subsequent to the sale of No. 10, the numbers of the schools were altered
No. 11 became No. 10. No. 18 (the last) became No. 17.

704: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

company with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Mott, the Public School No. 11,
and, after examining the four departments of the male and female infant
classes, and the two mor4idvanced, my gratification has been of the high-
est kind. The accuracy of reading and the knowledge of geography were
peculiarly striking, as evinced in both boys and girls, and in an equal degree
of perfection with each. The specimens of writing were such as surpassed
any thing I have ever before seen of the kind ; and, on the whole, I think
the schools highly creditable to both pupils and teachers, an honor to the
city, and a blessing to the nation. J. S. BUCKINGHAM.

A deputation of clergymen from England to the United
States, on a special mission, also visited the school, and left the
following note in the minute-book :

April 16, 1834. Revs. Reed and Mattheson, from England. Much
gratified with the examination.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 12.

On the 5th of February, 1830, at a meeting of the Board of
Trustees, a communication was received from a committee ap-
pointed at a meeting of citizens residing in the vicinity of the
Eighth avenue and Twenty-first street, representing the demand
for a school in that section of the city. In connection with the
communication, a letter was read from Gideon Lee, Esq., Alder-
man, and afterward Mayor, urging the application, and pledging
a contribution of $500 toward building the house. He also
recommended the erection of a school in the vicinity of Third
avenue and Twenty-eighth street, endorsing his proposition with
a subscription of $500 when it should be built. The whole
subject was referred to Messrs. Charles Oakley, Ovid P. Wells,
R. C. Cornell, and Samuel F. Mott. On the 17th of March,
the committee reported in favor of locating a school in that
vicinity, and also a new school between Nos. 2 and 4, on the east
side of the city. The report was accepted, and the recommen-
dations recommitted, with the addition of Messrs. Underbill,
Fox, and Brinsmade to the committee. On the 25th of June,
the 'committee was discharged, and Messrs. Oakley, Cornell, and
Mott were appointed as the committee. A report was submitted
by these gentlemen at the same meeting in favor of a location in
or near Seventeenth or Eighteenth street and the Eighth ave-

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 12. 705

nue. A subsequent recommendation, on the 19th of July, of
four lots on Seventeenth street, at $675 each, was approved by
the board, and the purchase was ordered. The Property Com-
mittee was directed to report plans and estimates for a building.
A donation of $200 was made by George Rapelye, Esq., on the
price of the lots. The plans and estimates were submitted on
the 28th of July, and the committee authorized to contract for
the building. The contracts were made with J. & J. Bunting,
masons, and James Russell, carpenter, and the house built and
furnished with books, apparatus, &c., as in the case of other
houses, at a total cost of $10,878.85. The school was opened
-with appropriate exercises on the 17th of January, 1831, in pres-
ence of a number of members of the Common Council and other
citizens, and daily sessions were held in it until the 22d, when it
was destroyed by fire. An insurance had been effected on the
building and its fixtures, &c., so that the loss to the Society was
only about $3,000. On the 4th of February, the Building Com-
mittee reported the completion of their duties, together with the
fact of the fire, and recommended the immediate rebuilding of
the house. The board approved the report, and temporary ac-
commodations were provided for the schools. Jacob P. Bunt-
ing, mason, and James Russell, carpenter, rebuilt the house,
which was completed and opened on the 29th of August follow-
ing.

Mr. George Everett, the first principal, resigned in 1834, and
was followed by Benjamin Wightman, who resigned November
1, 1841, Asa Smith being his successor, assisted by William H.
Reuck, afterward principal of No. 7, in Chrystie street. Mr.
Smith had been in the school several years as an assistant, and
held his post until the dissolution of the Society.

Miss Fanny F. Greenoak, principal of the girls' school, was
succeeded, in 1836, by Elizabeth Lindon, who resigned in 1849,
at which time Miss Susan Wright took the charge of the school,
in whose hands it was transferred to the Board of Education, in
1853.

The primary department was organized July 2, 1832, under
the care of Caroline Carpenter.
45

706 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 13.

The Committee on Locations (1830) recommended one on the
east side of the city, between No. 2, in Henry street, and No. 4,
in Rivington street. No further action was had at that time ;
but in 1832, at the meeting of the trustees held on June 8, a
committee was appointed to review the question, and Messrs.
James Heard, Swan, Oakley, Mott, Fox, and Cornell were
named for that duty. In November, the committee reported the
purchase of a location in Madison street, at the cost of $8,000
for four lots of ground. The Property Committee also reported
that contracts had been made for the building. In May, 1833,
Dr. Samuel K. Childs, W. "W. Chester, and S. Haff were ap-
pointed section for No. 13, which was opened on the 21st of that
month. The school was organized with 143 boys, 58 girls, and
156 boys and girls* in the primary department. At the public
exercises in the afternoon, Hon. Gideon Lee, the Mayor, a portion
of the Common Council, the School Commissioners, a portion of
the trustees, and many visitors, were present. The attendance
rapidly increased, so that, when the school closed for vacation,
there were on register 275 boys and 204 girls.

The school was placed under the care of Andrew Y. Stout,
who resigned on the 1st of May, 1844, when John H. Fanning
entered upon duty, and filled the post until transferred to the
ward school officers.

Miss Martha Grier was the first principal of the girls' school,
and was followed by Miss Sophia S. Cornell, hi 1836, who re-
signed in 1844, and Mary E. Vail assumed the post. In 1846,
Miss A. Harrison was appointed to fill the vacancy occasioned
by the withdrawal of Miss Vail, and Mary F. English followed
Miss Harrison, in 1848. In 1851, Anna M. Marsh entered upon
duty, and in her charge the school was transferred to its new
guardians, July 29, 1853.

Miss Catharine King was the first teacher of the primary de-
partment.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 14:. 707

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 14.

The Committee on Lots and Locations, appointed June 8,
1832, reported, on the 14th of December, that they had pur-
chased four lots of ground in North (now Houston) street, near
Norfolk, for $6,000. On the 1st of February, 1833, the Prop-
erty Committee reported that contracts had been made for u
building. On November 1, Messrs. Brinsmade, B. S. Collins,
and Timothy Hedges were appointed a temporary section for
No. 14r. The building was opened on November 4, 1833, with
appropriate exercises. A large number of citizens were present,
and addresses were made by Hon. Peter Augustus Jay, and His
Honor Gideon Lee, Mayor, and others. On the 8th of Novem-
ber, the pupils numbered, boys, 180 ; girls, 125 ; primary depart-
ment, 168 ; the attendance on. tha.t day being 171 boys, 96 girls,
and 64 boys and 76 girls in the primary school.

Dr. Samuel L. Kennedy, Hiram N. Peck, Matthias O. Hal-
sted, William Beach Lawrence, and Thomas McElrath were
appointed permanent section for No. 14. At the annual meet-
ing in May, 1835, Mr. Lawrence was transferred to another sec-
tion, and Hamilton Fish, afterward Governor of the State and
United States Senator, was placed on the section to fill the
vacancy.

Mr. Auson Willis was the first principal of the boys' depart-
ment. He filled the post two years, until 1835, when Leonard
Hazeltine succeeded, and continued in charge until the schools
passed to the care of the Board of Education.

Miss C. Wynans was appointed to the girls' department at
the organization of the school, and discharged her duties until
1837, when she was followed by Mrs. J. M. Wheaton. This lady
died in January, 1841, and Sarah A. Bunker succeeded for a few
months, when, in July of the same year, Miss Jane W. Miller
was placed in the chair. In 1845, Miss Miller resigned, to take
charge of Ward School No. 45, in Twenty-fourth street, and
Miss Georgian a Watson became principal. The school was in
her charge at the time of the transfer to the ward school officers.

The primary department was organized under the care of
Miss A. Hanks.

708 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 15.

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees held September 24,
1833, a memorial was presented from about forty residents of
that part of the city near the Third avenue and between Four-
teenth and Twenty-eighth streets, asking for a school in that dis-
trict. This was the location which Hon. Gideon Lee had pre-
viously indicated, and who also repeated his request in a letter
accompanying the memorial. A Committee on Locations was
appointed, consisting of Messrs. Charles Oakley, James Heard,
B. S. Collins, B. L. Swan, and J. N. Wells ; William W. Fox
was subsequently added to the committee. The report was laid
before the board on October 3, in favor of the measure ; the
committee was authorized to purchase suitable lots, and the
Property Committee was directed to erect a house similar to No.
14, in Houston street. Four lots in Twenty-seventh street, be-
tween Second and Third avenues, were purchased for $800 each.

At the annual meeting in May, 1834, the following gentle-
men were appointed section for No. 15 : Dr. Samuel R. Childs,
Anson G. Phelps, Samuel Demilt, Robert C. Cornell, and Sam-
uel F. Mott.

Daniel F. Tieman and Peter Cooper were members of the
section for No. 15 for a number of years.

The house was put under contract, finished, and dedicated on
the 4th of May, 1835. The following-named members of the
board were present on the occasion : Messrs. Oakley, Murray,
Demilt, Childs, Collins, Phelps, Baldwin, Whitmore, Day, Hal-
sey, Seton, Depeyster, James Heard, and Peck. Appropriate
exercises by pupils of other schools formed the principal feature
of the occasion, with an address by Samuel W. Seton.

On the 18th of November, 1848, a fire broke out in the ex-
tensive stables corner of Third avenue and Twenty-seventh
street, belonging to the omnibus company, when the buildings
were all destroyed, together with the Methodist church, the par-
sonage, and the school-house. The loss of property was almost
total, only a portion of the books, furniture, &c., being saved.
The building was destroyed. The amount of insurance was
$7,500, making a loss of $2,887.81.

Arrangements were immediately made to secure temporary
premises, and apartments in the Alinshouse buildings, on First

PDBLIC SCHOOL NO. 16. 709

avenue and Twenty-sixth street, were secured and fitted up.
The schools went into operation on the 4th of December. The
new building was erected, and school resumed therein on the 4th
of June, 1849.

William A. Walker, afterward School Superintendent, was
the first principal of No. 15, and held the office until 1840, when
lie was succeeded by William H. Wood, who remained in charge
of the school until after its transfer to the Board of Education.

Miss Elizabeth Cox organized the girls' school, but remained
only a short time, being succeeded, in 1836, by Caroline T.
Whiting, who was on duty, and in whose care the school was
transferred, in 1853.

The. primary department was organized in 1838, under the
care of Miss Louisa Lynch.

The autograph of William Cullen Bryant appears in the vis-
itors' book, under date of January 5, 1854.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 16.

At the meeting of the Board of Trustees held September 24,
1833, a committee of five, consisting of Charles Oakley, James
Heard, B. S. Collins, B. L. Swan, and J. N. Wells, was appoint-
ed to select locations for new schools. At the meeting in Octo-
ber, William W. Fox was added to the number, and they were
directed to select a location near the -Dry Dock. In 1834, the
same committee was continued, and on the Cth of February,
1835, they reported progress, and were authorized to purchase
lots in that part of the city. At a special meeting held at
School No. 5, at the examination of that school, the committee
again reported progress ; and on May 1st, a diversity of opinion
respecting the location having retarded the action of the com-
mittee, the chairman submitted a report in favor of a site in
Fifth street, and recommending the purchase of the lots selected,
at the price of $1,500 each. The board adopted the resolution
so reported.

The negotiations for the purchase were interrupted for some
time, and the lots were sold at auction for $1,700 each. The
purchaser held them at $2,000 ; and, on the 6th of November,

710 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the chairman of the committee reported the facts, requesting
final instructions as to the course to be pursued. The board
directed the purchase; and on the 6th of May, 1836, it was
reported as having been made. On the 5th of August, the
Property Committee was authorized to erect a building. On
the 4rth of August, 1837, the committee reported that contracts
had been made with James Russell, carpenter, and Lorenzo
Moses, mason, and that- the building was commenced. The
house was completed, and opened with appropriate exercises on
the 27th of April, 1838, Messrs. Charles Oakley, J. B. Collins,
II. W. Field, and S. W. Seton being the Committee of Arrange-
ments. The Mayor of the city, Hon. Cornelius W. Lawrence,
was present, with Isaac L. Yarian, and other citizens, the au-
dience being addressed by the Mayor, and James I. Roosevelt, Jr.

The school was organized on the 7th of May, with 84 boys,
72 girls, and 233 boys and girls in the primary department.
During the first quarter, the number rapidly increased, and the
first returns made were as follows : 270 boys, 181 girls, and in
the primary department, 236 boys and 215 girls. The average
attendance was 166 boys, 115 girls, and in the primary school,
264 boys and 223 girls.

The .section originally appointed for No. 16 consisted of the
following gentlemen : George T. Trimble, Samuel Demilt, Wil-
liam Smith, James H. Blaisdell, Joseph Washburn, Meigs D.
Benjamin, and Peter Stuyvesant.

JOSEPH CUKTIS was appointed a member of the section in
1839, and so remained until May, 1847, when he was transferred
to No. 6 (Randall's Island), and Colored School No. 2. The sec-
tion adopted the following resolution :

Resolved, That we have heard with regret of the transfer of Mr. Joseph
Curtis from this section. His efficient and interesting labors, and his exten-
sive information in affairs of public education, have made him extensively
useful, and placed us and the public under lasting obligations to him.
Though he will be lost to our section, we are gratified with the fact that his
services will not be lost to the Society and the public, and congratulate the
section to which he is transferred on the acquisition of his valuable services.

The section for 1844-'45 adopted the following resolution :

In the opinion of the section, the time has arrived that vocal music be
taught in our schools, and that this our wish be made known to the Execu-
tive Committee, and through them to the board.

PUBLIC- 8C1IOOL NO. 17. 711

Abraham K. Van Vleck organized the boys' school, and con-
ducted it with great fidelity and success, until he was called from
his labors by death, in March, 1850. On the 1st of April, Mr.
1S T . P. Beers, assistant in No. 7, Chrystie street, took charge of
the school, and passed with it to the supervision of the ward
school officers, in 1853, when the change of system took place.

Miss Mary McKay was the .first principal of the girls' school,
who remained only till 1840, when her successor, Miss Fezzan
T. Bobbins, followed. Miss Bobbins became Mrs. Stiles, and
resigned in 1848, when the vacancy was supplied by Miss S. J.
Hatfield, who retired in 1851, to be succeeded by Miss Urania
Downs, who remained in the school at the time of the dissolu-
tion of the Society.

The primary department was organized by Miss Sarah C.
Glover at the time of opening the school in 1838.

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 17.

The special meeting of the Board of Trustees for the exami-
nation of No. 4 was held April 10, 1838. After the exercises
were concluded, the board held a meeting to consider a recom-
mendation of the Executive Committee relative to the purchase
of lots for a new school in Thirteenth street, near the Sixth ave-
nue, to relieve the pressure upon No. 3, in Hudson street, and
No. 12, in Seventeenth street. The Committee on Locations
were directed to purchase the lots recommended, but in conse-
quence of a defect in the title, the negotiations were suspended.

In February, 1843, the sections of Nos. 3 and 12 reported
that there was an urgent necessity for a new building to relieve
their overcrowded condition ; and the board, at the meeting held
on the 5th of May, referred the matter to the Executive Com-
mittee, with power. A sub-committee was immediately appoint-
ed, and after examining a number of locations, the report
recommended the purchase of four lots in Thirteenth street, near
Seventh avenue, each 25 feet by 103 ft. 3 in. The report was
accepted and adopted, and the Property Committee reported
plans and estimates for the house, which were also adopted.
The committee were authorized to close the contracts with

712 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

James Russell, carpenter, and Lorenzo Moses, rnason. The
Building Committee consisted of Linus W. Stevens, B. R. Win-
tbrop, and Thompson Price.

On the 20th of November, the following gentlemen organ-
ized as section No. 17 : Floyd Smith, Hamilton Murray, Fred-
erick Havemeyer, Benjamin Ellis, and John R. Hurd. The first
three named were elected to the board on the 3d of November,
and assigned to that section.

Benjamin Ellis and John R. Hurd were appointed the Com-
mittee on Opening, and the arrangements were accordingly
made. The house was completed at the close of the year, and
the boys' school was organized, and the building appropriately
dedicated on the 4th of January, 1844. Col. William L. Stone
and Benjamin Ellis made addresses on the occasion. The girls'
school was opened for the reception of pupils on the next day,
and organized and went into operation on the 8th of the month.
On the 1st of February there were in attendance 242 boys and
220 girls.

Mr. Marvin W. Fox organized the boys' school, and sus-
tained it until the time of his resignation, August 1, 1852, when
Arthur Murphy succeeded, and continued it until the change of
system was made.

Miss Mary C. Kiersted was appointed principal of the girls'
department, where she remained till 1845, when she resigned,
and was succeeded by Miss H. M. Mackenzie, in whose charge
it passed to the care of the ward school officers.

The following entry, by John Inman, appears on the minute-
book of the primary department :

January 27, 1845. Visited the school for the first time, and derived par-
ticular gratification from seeing the neatness of appearance and apparent
enjoyment of the little ones in their exercises. The school appears to be
admirably conducted. JOHN

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 18.

The extreme northwestern part of the city, in 1840, was
thinly settled, and the wants of the district were supplied by
Primary School No. 21, which was provided with accommoda-
tions in the basement of the Methodist church in Forty-first

PUBLIC SCHOOL NO. 18. 713

street. The population, however, increased with great rapidity,
and the necessity for increased facilities, and adapted to a more
advanced class of children, became apparent. The section of
No. 12, in Seventeenth street, had some discussion on the expe-
diency of opening a new school in the neighborhood of Fortieth
street. At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the board,
held September 7, 1843, an extract from the minutes of section
No. 12 was read, asking for the opening of a school of a higher
grade than a primary. The matter was referred to a committee 1 ,
consisting of Messrs. Murray, Hurd, and Demilt. The commit-
tee reported in October, recommending that the basement of the
church corner of Eighth avenue and Forty-third street, then
building, and which had been hired by the Primary School Com-
mittee, be hired by the Executive Committee ; that a girls' school
be opened therein, under a suitable teacher and assistants ; that
Primary No. 21, in Forty-first street, be changed to a school for
boys, and regularly organized ; that they be known as Public
School No. 18, and that a special committee be appointed for the
purpose.

These recommendations were adopted, and Messrs. John R.
Hurd, J. W. Howe, Joseph Curtis, and Linus W. Stevens were
appointed said committee. The proper arrangements were
made, and the schools were opened for the reception of scholars
early in the month of May.

The boys' school was organized on the 14th of May, under
James A. Ferguson, in the Methodist church in Forty-first street,
near Seventh avenue. The girls' school was organized the same
day, in the Baptist church corner of Eighth avenue and Forty-
third street, under Amelia Kiersted. Mr. Samuel "W. Seton
made an address on the occasion.

In the early part of 1845, the demand for increased school
accommodations became so urgent, that the section pressed upon
the Board of Trustees the inevitable duty of erecting a school-
building. At the meeting of the section held on May 12, a reso-
lution was adopted authorizing an application to the board ; and
one of the section reported that he had secured the refusal of
four lots of ground in Forty-seventh street, until the 1st of June
following, at the price of $1,900.

The Board of Trustees approved of the measure, but as the
state of the funds made it of doubtful expediency to appropriate

714: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SOCIETY.

the money at that time, a committee was appointed, who report-
ed in favor of raising $25,000 by mortgage of property of the
Society. This course was adopted, and the means provided.
On the 5th of February, 1846, the Executive Committee author-
ized the Property Committee to issue proposals for estimates,
and close contracts for the house as soon as they should be in-
formed by the treasurer that the money had been secured.

The building was opened for the registry of pupils on Mon-
day, November 9, 1846 ; and on the 16th, the public dedicatory
exercises were held in the primary department. Addresses were
delivered by Samuel "W. Seton and William Oland Bourne.

The erection of this edifice gave rise to the question relative
to the power of the Public School Society to erect new houses,
and it occasioned much anxiety ; for it was a test question which
vitally affected its existence as an institution. When its power
of expansion ceased and its limits became circumscribed, another
and contemporaneous system could not fail to absorb it by its
overshadowing growth and patronage. The question was de-
cided in favor of the right of the Society to Public School No.
18, but* further expansion was denied. This was, therefore, the
last school-building erected by the Society.

On the 5th of October, 1847, the primary department in this
school was organized with 117 pupils of both sexes, withdrawn
from the upper departments. In October, 1848, the number of
pupils had increased to 177, and in October, 1851, there were
436 hi attendance.

Mr. James A. Ferguson, the first principal in the boys'
school, remained until the 1st of February, 1851, when he was
succeeded by William T. Graff, in whose care the school contin-
ued until transferred to the Board of Education.

Miss Amelia Kiersted, who organized the girls' department
at the original location in the church, continued in uninterrupted
service until the change of system took place, by which the Board
of Education became the guardian of the schools of the city.

Miss C. C. Cowen was the first principal of the primary de-
partment.

[NOTE. The original numbers of the schools are retained in this chapter. By the
sale of No. 10, in Duane Street, the numbers of the remaining schools were changed,
and No. 18 became No. 17, under which enumeration the schools passed to the Board
of Education. After the transfer the numbers of the Ward Schools were also changed
as required by the law, and Ward School No. 1 became No. 18, and others followed in
their proper succession.

APPENDIX

REPORT

Of the Law Committee of the Common Council, to whom were referred the
Petitions of Trustees of Church Schools for Participation in the Distri-
bution of the School Fund.

[The law of November 19, 1824, gave to the Common Council the power
to appoint ten commissioners of common schools, and to designate the insti-
tutions which should be the recipients of the school money. The trustees
of St. Patrick's and St. Peter's Roman Catholic schools, the Methodist, and
other church schools, submitted their petitions for a continuance of the ap-
portionment to these schools, which were referred to the Law Committee,
together with the fourth section of the law. On the 28th of April, 1825,
the committee submitted their report.]

The Committee on Laws, to whom were referred the fourth section of
the act of the Legislature of this State, relating to common schools in the
city of New York, passed the 19th of November, 1824 ; the memorials of
the trustees of the charity schools attached to the Reformed Dutch Church
of the city of New York ; of the trustees of the First Protestant Episcopal
charity school in the city of New York ; and of the trustees of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, praying respectively for a participation in the com-
mon school fund ; and also the report of a committee of the trustees of the
Free-School Society, on the distribution of the said fund, proposing a
change in the constitution of that Society, so as to admit children of all
classes to their schools, for a compensation not exceeding fifty cents per
quarter, with power to remit in proper cases, REPORT :

That the subject referred to them is one of vital importance to this com-
munity, involving, as it does, the high and essential interests of education
and of public benevolence in their application to the numerous poor chil-
dren of our city. The various institutions which have been established for,
or have undertaken from the best of motives the relief of this portion of
our inhabitants, have been represented before your committee ; and their
respective claims to a participation respectively in the public bounty have
been urged, on the part of their delegates, by all the obligations and motives

716 APPENDIX.

which could be drawn from the sources of piety and philanthropy, and with
all the force and energy of the most persuasive eloquence and the most
cogent argument.

These discussions have instructed your committee, and have, at the same
time, proved the depth of talent, the eminent virtue, and the laudable pub-
lic spirit which distinguish those of our fellow-citizens who deservedly take
the lead in meliorating the condition of the human race, and especially that
of the poor and destitute among the rising generation.

These institutions consist, on the one hand, of the churches and religious
societies, many of which maintain charity schools ; and, on the other, of
societies whose members are of different religious persuasions, and whose
exclusive object is the gratuitous instruction of the poor.

On the part of the churches, it has been maintained that the charity
schools are of long standing, and have heretofore received the fostering care
of the Legislature ; that the children are taught in them the branches of a
plain, ordinary education, with little or no difference as to efficiency when
compared with the other institutions, and in support of this, they offer to
submit them to a fair examination ; and it is superadded, with much empha-
sis, that, in these schools, the children receive also the advantages of re-
ligious instruction.

On this latter subject it is urged, in the first place, by the advocates of
the churches, that for this they receive no compensation; and, in the second,
that religion is the best and only foundation of all private happiness, of all
sound morality, and of all capacity for public usefulness ; and, in answer to
the charge of efforts on their part to promote sectarian influence, they deny
that such is their intended object; and they further reply and explain, that
religion cannot exist but according to some specific form and system ; that
no religious sentiment can be advanced except of the most general nature,
about which professing Christians will not differ ; and that the objection
would exclude all practical religious instruction whatsoever, since religion
must be presented in some definite shape, or it can hardly find access to the
heart and become influential on the conduct. And it has, in turn, been
argued, " Show me a man of no sect, and I will show you a man of no
religion" and that it is better to have a community of conscientious secta-
rians, than a community of nothingarians. And it is further added, that
the children attached to the charity schools are habitually instructed in the
observance of Sunday, not only by causing them to be kept out of the
streets, and to be removed from the temptations and dangers to which they
would be there exposed, but by causing them to go to church, and to engage
in the duties of that sacred day.

It is further insisted by the churches, that they and tbe lay corporations
together are the only associations for the benevolent -purpose of instructing/
the poor of this city ; and that, under the act of the Legislature as it now
stands, each will alike be subject to a constant and wholesome supervision
on the part of the commissioners appointed by the Common Council. They
further contend that there can be no danger of a church establishment grow-
ing out of the assistance they wish to receive from this fund, which will fall

REPORT OF THE LAW COMMITTEE. 717

far short of a support, and that the rendering of such assistance only is differ-
ent altogether from endowing or entrusting them with public funds, without
a definite and specified object. Under this head, it is maintained that no
danger is felt by the General or State Government from the growth of cleri-
cal influence, or of its tendency to church establishments, as the employment
of chaplains by the House of Representatives, and in the Army and Navy,
and also in the State Legislatures, is still continued with the general appro-
bation. The instance of the employment of a chaplain by this board is also
mentioned, to prove that no such apprehension is here entertained. It is
urged, further, that the State has heretofore directed the division of this
fund among the churches maintaining charity schools, and the other lay"
corporations, as the former wish it still to continue to be divided. That the
Legislature of this State has heretofore made to churches considerable
grants, and a prominent instance is mentioned of a donation of $4,000 to
one of the churches of this city (sec. 37, p. 144) ; and a further and general
argument is drawn, favorable to the high literary and intellectual qualifica-
tions of the clergy of our country, from the fact that in very many, if not in
the large majority of instances, the presidents of colleges and seminaries of
learning are chosen from that body by the general consent and approbation
of the community at large.

In regard to the argument that children ought to be instructed in cate-
chisms and forms of religion at home, as is the case with those taught in the
ordinary pay schools, they insist that the situation of poor children, such as
are taught in the free and charity schools, does not admit of instruction at
home on any subject that is useful, much less that of religion in any form ;
and they say that the trustees of the free schools, conscious of this, do teach
the children under their care some religion, but of that kind and in that
degree which is calculated to meet the views of numerous and influential
sects of Christians. And on the subject of the prevalence of sectarianism,
and the common anxiety to extirpate it, it has been very strenuously insisted
that, should either of the lay corporations have the entire benefit of this
fund, the so much apprehended effects of sectarian jealousy and animosity
would soon be experienced by that body, and that its members would be-
come the subjects, and its place of meeting be transformed into the arena,
of their baneful operations. Assuming, therefore, what is predicted of
them, the delegates of the churches contend that this sectarian tendency, if
it be an evil, is now kept within reasonable limits by encouraging all
religious denominations ; whereas, by placing its now divided forces into a
more concentrated form, its native intensity would be excited, and the con-
sequences would be fatal to the body or the association which it might
infect.

These are some of the most prominent reasons on which the claims of
the churches are rested for a participation in this fund.

On the other hand, and in behalf of those institutions not of an ecclesi-
astical description, but formed out of all religious persuasions indiscrimi-
nately, it is insisted that the common school fund will soon become of very-
large amount, and the annual distribution be consequently greatly increased.

718 APPENDIX.

And it is asked, Shall such a portion of the public moneys be placed in any
degree under clerical influence ? A proposition to tax the people for the
support of religion, it is said, would never have been sustained .by the Con-
vention of 1777, nor by that of 1821 ; and the Common Council is now
called upon officially to act, as those bodies would have acted had they been
called upon to settle this question. The churches, it is alleged, ought not
to participate in this fund, because it would be in violation of that rule of
civil policy admitted to be prevalent, which forbids all connection between
matters of Church and those of State, and upon which the fourth section of
the seventh article of the present Constitution, and which is. reenacted from
the old, is founded, forbidding any minister of the gospel from holding any
civil or military office.

It is strongly contended that the trustees of churches are irresponsible
to, and independent of, any civil authority, being appointed not by a spe-
cial law of the Legislature, but by their own act, under the general law for
the incorporation of religious societies. That this state of irresponsibility
and independence is calculated to produce relaxation in discipline, and an
enfeebled attention on their part to the minute and perplexing business of
education ; and that, as to this branch of their duties, there is no control
over them whatsoever.

That part of this fund is raised by tax, and to devote any portion of it,
so that by possibility it may be turned into sectarian channels, would be to
compel one portion of the community, without their consent, to become the
supporters of the religious opinions of others. That to pay teachers of sec-
tarian schools out of this fund, is the same thing, in effect, as to pay the
clergymen of the congregations ; and that sectarian purposes may be equally
promoted by teaching children as by maintaining clergymen.

That, when it is maintained that religion is taught in the charity schools,
it must be understood that the catechisms and confessions of the churches
are taught, and that, though religious creeds and dogmas are equally toler-
ated by the law, it by no means follows that all are equally true and equally
entitled to support ; and that it is impossible they should all be true and
equally entitled to support, since some are directly opposed and contradic-
tory to the others. It is further maintained, that one system or the other
must be the best, and entitled to a preference ; and that, therefore, if a
religious education be the best, and entitled to such preference as relates to
this fund, the institutions promoting and inculcating it ought to be estab-
lished, and every other prostrated and condemned.

That churches and religious societies have no common standard, no com-
mon principle, and can be subjected to no common superintendence or
inspection ; and that the school fund, which is founded on taxation and
public income, shall be applied indiscriminately to the support of all hold-
ing such conflicting and irreconcilable tenets, it will follow, not only that
error will be placed on the same ground with truth, and receive at least an
equal share of support with it, but that it will produce an unequal, and
consequently unjust bearing on different members of the same community,

EEPORT OF THE LAW COMMITTEE. 719

who contribute in the same proportion to this as to the other public bur-
dens.

It is maintained that religious societies do not admit of visitations as
such ; and in reply to any proposed discrimination between the churches or
their schools, it is said that any pi-ovision in favor of one must be founded
on a principle which, in its operation, will admit all alike the long-estab-
lished with the one of yesterday the one venerable for its antiquity and its
well-acquired reputation for piety and usefulness, with another which may
be the offspring of cupidity and speculation, and under the direction of an
individual of questionable morality, and set up for the very purpose of dep-
redating on the public charity and munificence, and, consequently, on the
hard earnings of the people, which are the sources of that charity and mu-
nificence. On the subject of aiding in the support of churches, which, it is
contended, results from the late law, and the practice under it, it is strongly
urged that true religion requires and admits of no aid from the secular
power ; that her only resources are from heaven, and the contributions of
willing hearts ; that she seeks only for protection, and not for support ; and
that the arm of the State, though strong, has no potency or legitimate con-
trol beyond such protection.

These propositions, it is contended, are unanswerable in themselves, and
derive great strength from the example of every other county in this State
where the common school fund is confined in its application to the purposes
of a common or literary education alone, and is not permitted to receive the
least share of religious or clerical influence in its distribution ; and also from
the examples of some of our sister States, who, in the recent revision of
their constitutions, have severally struck from these instruments the pro-
vision formerly incorporated in them, favorable to ecclesiastical participa-
tion in similar funds in these States.

And it is further contended that, on this very subject, we are admon-
ished and instructed by an act which passed the Assembly (though not the
Senate of this State) in the year 1824, founded on the report of a commktee
of that body, in which the committee state that " the city of New York is
the only part of the State where the school fund is at all subject to the con-
trol of religious societies. This fund is considered by your committee
purely of a civil character, and therefore it ought never, in their opinion, to
pass into the hands of any corporation or set of men who are not directly
amenable to the constituted civil authorities of the Government, and bound
to report their proceedings to the public." And that committee more than
intimate that, in their opinion, it would be " a violation of a fundamental
principle of legislation to allow the funds of the State, raised by a tax on
the citizens, designed for civil purposes, to be subject to the control of any
religious corporation."

In regard to religious instruction, it is contended, on the part of the civil
or lay corporations, that they cause to be communicated, in imitation of the
Bible Society, who publish the Scriptures without note or comment, such
precepts, in the form of reading-lessons and catechisms, in the original lan-
guage of the Bible, on such interesting and familiar subjects of human duty

720 APPENDIX.

and obligations as children can best comprehend. And as to the specific
or sectarian forms of religion, they leave them to be communicated by the
parents or guardians at home, or by the churches or Sunday schools, to
which it is their constant wish and direction that the children may be sent.

It is further maintained that, if the system which, until lately, was tol-
erated in this city, should now be revived and perpetuated, the consequence
will be a continued and more successful rivalry than heretofore, not on the
part of the old, settled, and well-conducted churches, but by others which
may be set on foot to discover which can obtain the greatest number of
scholars on their registers, and to whose principal object the business of in-
structing aod training up poor children will be altogether subsidiary ; and
that, while these will be depredating on this fund, which is designed for the
most beneficent purposes, the free schools, which have been unparalleled in
their useful effects upon the poor, will fall into decay, and become utterly
abandoned.

In the conclusion of the argument on this side of the question, it is
stated that, before the existence of the common school fund, the charity
schools flourished and increased, and, in all probability, will continue to
have the same success from the liberality of their friends and patrons. That
the free schools will be open for those children who may be left without a
charity school, should the churches not be permitted hereafter to participate
in this fund; that the instances of such destitution are not likely to be
numerous ; and that, at all events, a greater number of poor children will
be instructed in the free schools alone, than are instructed in all the institu-
tions at present partaking of this fund, in consequence of the more concen-
trated and successful efforts which they will be enabled to make by the erec-
tion of such buildings and the employment of such teachers as may be
required, if the common school fund shall be appropriated and expended in
the manner proposed by them.

And it is added, that the following are among the further results which
may be expected from this mode of distribution :

First, an increased economy in the expenditure and use of the public
moneys, arising form the singleness of the object to which they will be
devoted, whereby the greatest quantity of good may be expected from the
smallest amount of means.

Second, the utmost expedition in the acquirement of useful knowledge
by the poor children at large, and in all sections of our city, by reason of
the highly-improved methods which are established, and the excellent
teachers which are employed in the free schools.

Third, a greater uniformity in the rule, government, and branches of
instruction which will be pursued in the public seminaries, than can be
expected at present in the diversified and variously conducted schools of the
churches and other societies.

These are among the reasons urged by the lay, in opposition to the
religious societies, why the latter should be excluded, and the former alone
receive the benefit of this fund.

Your committee have thus, with the single desire of truth, laid before

REPORT OF THE LAW COMMITTEE. 721

the Common Council the result of their inquiries, and the substance of the
communications that have been made to them.

In the performance of this duty, they have felt all the importance and
responsibility of the task assigned to them ; and while they would willingly
have retired from the appointment, and do each individually wish that the
Legislature had passed the necessary law on this subject, on the recent
application to them for that purpose, yet your committee cannot permit
themselves to hesitate or falter in the course of public duty, when that
course is plainly manifest to their understandings. Your committee will not
conceal either their own private and personal wishes at the commencement
of their duties, that the well-organized churches and religious societies in
our city might be permitted to continue in the reception of a part of this
fund as heretofore ; but the weight of the argument, as urged before them,
and which they have endeavored to condense in this report, and the estab-
lished constitutional and political doctrines which have a bearing on this
question, and the habits and modes of thinking of the constituents at large
of this board, require, in the opinion of your committee, that the common
school fund should be distributed for civil purposes only, as contradistin-
guished from those of a religious or sectarian description.

As to the existing institutions among which it is now divided, the Com-
mon Council will give to the reasons and arguments which have been stated,
such weight as they may deserve, on the decision of the question whether
they in general ought to participate in the division of a fund drawn in part
like the present, from the people, by taxation.

But it would seerp. to your committee to be a departure from the most
ordinary prudence, to permit such religious societies as might hereafter
spring up and choose to add to their establishments a charity school, to par-
take indiscriminately of this fund, since neither the character of their man-
agers and conductors, nor the object which such societies might have in
view, could now be foreseen or apprehended. And the arguments and con-
stitutional barriers, and the modes of thinking of our citizens before men-
tioned, are conclusive, in the opinion of your committee, why any one
church or religious society now established, however exemplary or merito-
rious, equally with all others, should be excluded from a participation in
this fund.

In regard to the project contained in the report of a committee of the
trustees of the Free-School Society, proposing a change in their constitu-
tion, your committee have concluded, as it would require an application to
the Legislature before it could be carried into execution, and the present
session is probably too far advanced for that purpose, to recommend that it
be laid on the table for further consideration.

On the main subject referred to your committee, they beg leave to sub-
mit the accompanying draft of an ordinance to the consideration of the
Common Council. Respectfully submitted,

S. COWDREY,
THOMAS BOLTON,
E. W.
46

722 APPENDIX.

[At a meeting of the trustees of Roman Catholic churches, held at St.
Peter's Church, Barclay street, February 17, 1840 (see page 179), a petition
to the Common Council was adopted, which was submitted to the Board of
Assistant Aldermen on March 2, when the trustees of the Public School Soci-
ety submitted a remonstrance. On the 16th of March, the Hebrew congre-
gation in Crosby street, and the Scotch Presbyterian Church, presented a
petition for school money. Remonstrances were presented from Lockwood
Smith and 209 others; William Holmes and 61 others; the Public School
Society, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Reformed Protestant Dutch
churches. On March 30, a remonstrance was presented from the East Broome
street Baptist Church, and from S. Devereaux and others. On April 13, the
remonstrance from the Reformed Presbyterian Church was presented. These
papers were referred to the Committee on Arts, Sciences, and Schools, who
reported April 27th.]

DOCUMENT NO. 80.

BOARD OF ASSISTAXT ALDKRMKS, April 27, 1840.

Report of the Committee on Arts and Sciences and Schools, on the peti-
tion of the officers and members of the Roman Catholic and other Churches
in the city of New York, for an apportionment of school moneys to the
schools attached to said churches. Presented by Mr. Dodge. Adopted,
and two thousand copies ordered to be printed, with the accompanying peti-
tions and remonstrances, under the direction of the committee.

EDWARD PATTERSON, Cleric.

The Committee on Arts and Sciences and Schools of the Board of Assist-
ants, to whom were referred the petitions of the trustees and members of the
several Roman Catholic churches in the city of New York, the Scotch Pres-
byterian Church in said city, and the Hebrew congregation in Crosby street,
for an appropriation of a portion of the school moneys to the schools
attached to said churches or congregations ; and to whom were also referred
the resolutions of the Commissioners of School Money, and the remon-
strances of the Public School Society, and of other societies and individuals,
against making such appropriations, respectfully KEPOBT :

The subject-matter referred to your committee is one of the highest im-
portance, not only as regards the rights and interests of the petitioners, but
as it affects the great cause of public education, the wishes and feelings of
the people at large, the intentions of the founders of the existing system of
public instruction, and the requirements of the Constitution and laws of the
State. Fully impressed with the magnitude of the questions involved, the
committee proceeded to the examination of the subject with an anxious
desire to render complete justice to all, to advance the interests of the pub-
lic, and extend the benefits of education to the utmost possible limit.
Knowing that many objections were urged by a large and respectable por*

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON ARTS AND SCIENCES. 723

tion of our citizens against the prayer of the petitioners, and that much
excitement existed among the petitioners, and in the public mind generally,
upon the subject, the committee deemed it their duty to give all parties an
opportunity of fully and thoroughly discussing the merits of the question
before them. For this purpose, public notice was given that the committee
would meet, for the purpose of considering the subject, on the 12th day of
March, in the chamber of this board, and all who felt interested were in-
vited to attend. The petitioners on the part of the Roman Catholic church-
es appeared at the time and place appointed for the meeting, by a commit-
tee of three gentlemen appointed for that purpose. The Public School Soci-
ety, one of the remonstrant parties, also appeared by a committee.

It is unnecessary to detail fully the proceedings of the committee at this
meeting. It is sufficient to say, that both the parties who appeared had
every opportunity of stating their views to the committee, and that a full
discussion of the subject was had. On the part of the petitioners who
appeared, it was stated that there were, in the city of New York, seven
Roman Catholic churches, each of which maintained a free school, estab-
lished for the purpose of educating the children of the poor attached to
their respective congregations. This, it appears, is the primary object in
establishing the schools ; though the children of persons attached to other
religious denominations are not excluded, and do, in fact, attend them. It
was further stated that no religious test or qualification was requisite to
admission, and that no means were used to alter the religious views of the
child of a person not attached to the Catholic Church. This statement,
your committee have no doubt, is correct.

Objection was made, on the part of the Catholic petitioners, to the pub-
lic schools now existing and supported from the school fund, on the ground
that no religious instruction was communicated there ; or, if any was given,
it was of a character which reflected upon the doctrines of the Catholic
Church. The latter branch of this objection was denied on the part of the
Public School Society.

The petitioners who appeared also contended that they contributed, in
common with all other citizens who were taxed for the purpose, to the
accumulation of the common school fund, and that they were therefore enti-
tled to participate in its advantages ; that now they received no benefit from
the fund, inasmuch as the members of the Catholic churches could not con-
scientiously send their children to schools in which the religious doctrines
of their fathers were exposed to ridicule or censure. The truth and justice
of the first branch of this proposition cannot be questioned. The correct-
ness of the latter part of the argument, so far as the same relates to books
or exercises of any kind in the public schools reflecting on the Catholic
Church, was, as is hereinbefore stated, denied by the School Society.

On the part of the Public School Society, it was contended that any ap-
propriation of the school money to any religious denomination, for the pur-
pose of educating the children of that denomination, was foreign to the design
of the common school system as organized by law, hostile to the spirit of the
Constitution, and at variance with the nature of our free institutions.

724 APPENDIX.

It may be proper here to state that, in the argument, it was admitted, on
the part of the Catholic petitioners, that, in the schools attached to their
churches, religious instruction in the doctrines of the Church would be given
after the usual school hours, with the understanding that no child would be
required to attend at that time without the approval of the parents.

The preceding is a brief abstract of the views presented to your com-
mittee by the petitioners and remonstrants. It is important that a statement
of these views should be presented in this form to the board, that they may
fully understand the wishes of the parties, and through them, as far as they
can be ascertained in this way, the feelings and opinions of the public.

Upon the facts presented to the committee, two questions have arisen of
great moment to the people of this city and State. These questions have
received our most attentive examination, and the conclusions to which the
committee have arrived are such, they trust, as will meet the concurrence of
the board and the approval of the public.

The questions to which the committee have directed their attention are
as follows :

First : Have the Common Council of this city, under the existing laws
relative to common schools in the city of New York, a legal right to appro-
priate any portion of the school fund to religious corporations ?

Second : Would the exercise of such power be in accordance with the
spirit of the Constitution and the nature of our Government ?

It is undeniable that the Common Council of the city of New York have,
by statute, the power of designating the " institutions and schools " which
shall participate in the benefits of the common school fund. Under the
statute confirming this power, the question naturally 'arises, What associa-
tions of individuals does the phrase " institutions and schools " include ? A
brief view of the legislation of the State upon the subject of public instruc-
tion in this city will throw much light upon the subject.

The common school system of the State of New York was designed by
the people, through whose representatives in the Legislature it was organ-
ized, to afford to every child the opportunity of acquiring a plain and prac-
tical education of that character which would fit him for the ordinary busi-
ness of life. To afford to all citizens the privilege of educating their chil-
dren under the public care and at the public charge, the Legislature per-
ceived the necessity of placing the schools beyond the reach of those
influences which might render them obnoxious to the feelings of any citizen.
To avoid the introduction of subjects of instruction into the schools that
might by possibility lead to the creatiftn of angry and unpleasant feelings in
the little neighborhoods which compose the school districts of the State, the
entire management and control of the schools, in the first instance, was given
by law to commissioners, inspectors, and trustees, elected immediately by
the people of the several towns and districts. Private associations and
religious corporations were excluded from the management of the funds and
the government of the schools. Private interest, under this system, could
not appropriate the public treasure to private purposes, and religious zeal
could not divert them to the purposes of proselytism. The watchful eye of

BEPOKT OF COMMITTEE ON ARTS AND SCIENCES. 725

an interested community guarded the treasure of the schools, and mutual
jealousy prevented the introduction of any system of education into the
school-room which might by possibility be the means of propagating the
doctrines of any denomination at the expense of others. It is evident from
the strictly popular character of the system of public instruction as origi-
nally established, that the Legislature intended the public school fund to be
employed for the purpose of communicating to the children of the State
instruction of a strictly secular character, altogether unconnected with either
political or religious education. This system for the government of the
schools has existed in the State, excepting in the city of New York and
some other cities, from the year 1812 to the present time, and has been pro-
ductive of the happiest results.

The first general act for the establishment of common schools was passed
in the year 1812. By that act the common school system was organized in
the manner and with the design hereinbefore, stated. All the provisions of
the act in question did not extend to this city. The officers charged with
the expenditure of the school money and the supervision of the schools in
the city of New York, were not intended to be elected by the people, nor
were the people, through their immediate representatives, to exercise a
direct control over the subject. A subsequent act was passed on the 12th
of March, 1813, relative to common schools in this city (and supplementary
to the act of 1812), by which the Commissioners of School Moneys were
directed to pay the moneys received by them to " the trustees of the Free-
School Society in the city of New York " (now known as the Public School
Society), and to " the trustees or teachers of the Orphan Asylum Society,
the Sc ciety of the Economical School in the city of New York, the African
Free School, and of such incorporated religious societies in said city as now
support, or hereafter shall establish, charity schools within the said city,
who may apply for the same," &c. Revised Laws, vol. 1, p. 267.

It will be perceived that, by this act, " incorporated religious societies "
were expressly named as proper recipients of the public bounty provided
for the support of common schools ; and it appears, too, from the language
of the act, that the commissioners had no discretion as to the admission or
exclusion of religious societies from a participation in the fund. The law
was imperative in its character, and the several religious societies of the
city possessed a legal right to draw their respective portions of the fund
from the public treasury, subject only to the restriction that the money so
received should be appropriated to the purposes of free and common edu-
cation. Under this law many churches of different denominations partici-
pated in the benefits of the school fund. At different periods, special acts
of the Legislature were passed, conferring portions of the same fund upon
several charitable societies other than those of a sectarian character. An-
other act, which eventually led to the change in the system, which your
committee are about to state, was passed in 1822, authorizing the Bethel
Baptist Church (then one of the participants in the school fund) " to em-
ploy the surplus of school money in their hands in the erection of school-
houses and all other needful purposes of a common school education, but

726 APPENDIX.

for no other purpose whatever." Under this act gross abuses occurred, and
the funds received by the church were applied to other purposes than those
contemplated by the act. This misapplication of the public money, devoted
to the sacred purpose of common education, induced the Legislature, in the
session of 1834, not to repeal the act passed for the benefit of the Bethel
Church, and under which the abuses in question had occurred, but to repeal
that portion of the act of 1813 which included " incorporated religious
societies " among the recipients of the school fund. The committee will
proceed to state the extent and manner of the repeal in detail.

On the 19th of November, 1824, the Legislature, in consequence of the
abuses of the Bethel Church, and evidently with a view to guard against
the recurrence of similar or any abuses thereafter, passed a general act. en-
tering fully into details, for the better management of the school fund in
the city of New York, By this act many important alterations in the sys-
tem were effected ; and, among others, the whole power of selecting the
recipients of the school moneys was delegated to the Common Council.
The act to which your committee refer is entitled, " An Act Relating to
Common Schools in the City of New York." By the fifth ection of this
law it is provided as follows : " The institutions or schools which shall be
entitled to receive of said school moneys, shall, from time to time, and at
least once in three years, be designated by the Corporation of the city of
New York, in common council convened, who shall also have power to pre-
scribe the limitations and restrictions under which said moneys shall be
received by said institutions or schools, or any of them." Laws of 1824,
p. 338. By the ninth section it is provided that the act take effect on the
15th day of May, 1825, and that, from and after that day, the act entitled
" An Act Supplementary to the Act, Entitled ' An Act for the Establishment
of Common Schools,' " passed the 12th of March, 1813, and all, each and
every other act or section and sections of acts heretofore passed, relating to
common schools, to moneys arising from the school fund of the State, or to
the distribution or apportionment thereof, so far as relates to, or in any wise
concerns, the city and county of New York, and societies supporting charity
schools therein, and no further, is and are hereby repealed. Laws of 1824,
p. 389.

Previous to 1824, the Legislature of the State designated the societies or
schools who were entitled to receive a portion of the school fund, but by
the act of that year, reenacted in the Revised Statutes, that power is con-
ferred upon the Common Council ; and the question now presented to the
board is, whether the Common Council have an unlimited discretion in the
matter, or whether they are subject to any limitation ; and if so, to what ?

By the school act of 1812, " incorporated religious societies " supporting
or establishing charity schools were expressly named as entitled to receive,
with other societies, their ratable proportions of the school fund. One of
the " incorporated religious societies " participating in the fund, and author-
ized by law to employ it for a special purpose, misapplied the money and
abused the trust reposed in it. The Legislature immediately thereafter re-
pealed the law of 1813, under which religious societies were then recipients

EEPOKT OF COMMITTEE ON ARTS AND SCIENCES. 727

of the money, and authorized the Common Council to designate the " insti-
tutions '' and '' schools " which should be entitled to receive it.

There is something peculiar in the language of the repealing act of 1824,
which fully satisfies your committee that the Legislature intended, ever after,
to exclude religious corporations from the reception of the school moneys.
Tn the act of 1813 they are named as " incorporated religious societies,"
and this is the only act under which they ever received any portion of the
fund.

By the act of 1824, " institutions " and " schools " are to receive it. It
would require much ingenuity to induce any person to believe that the
Legislature of the State would, in a solemn legal enactment, describe a
church as an " institution " or a " school." The language employed, your
committee believe, should be constructed in its plain and familiar meaning ;
and it must be evident to all, that if the Legislature, in 1824, intended to
confer any portion of the school fund upon religious societies, they would
have used the words found in the act of 1813, or words of a similar import.

The attention of the board is also called to that part of the ninth sec-
tion of the act of 1824 which repeals the act of 1813, relative to common
schools in this city. This section declares, in the most unequivocal and
forcible manner, " that the act of 1813, and all and every other act or sec-
tions of acts relating to the distribution and apportionment of the school
fund, so far as the same relates to the city of New York, and to societies
supporting charity schools therein, are repealed." No language can be more
clear and explicit than this, and your committee cannot hesitate in express-
ing it to be their opinion that the only authority under which religious
societies participated in the school fund, was contained in the act of 1813 :
and that this act was repealed by the Legislature with the full intention
that religious societies, as such, should no longer receive any portion of the
school money from the public treasury, even for the purpose of supporting
common schools. This opinion of your committee is confirmed by the
almost universal opinion of the people of this city, from 1824 to the present
time.

It is undeniable that the Common Council have a general discretion as
to the schools to be supported by the public money ; but it appears to your
committee that the intentions of the Legislature and the people, although
not reduced to the form of a positive legal enactment, should, so far as they
can be gathered from the proceedings of the Legislature, be respected by
the Common Council. Believing that the act of 1824 was intended to pre-
vent a participation in the school moneys by religious societies, your com-
mittee suggest to the board, that their power to apportion the fund among
societies of that character, is, at the least, very questionable ; and that a
prudent regard for the obligations of duty should prevent the exercise of
so doubtful a poWer in any case whatever.

It may be proper here to observe, that the act of 124, relative to the
distribution of school moneys in the city of New York, was reenacted in
the Revised Statutes (vol. 1, new ed., p. 483). In the reenactment of this
statute, the words '' societies or schools " are used in defining the recipients

728 APPENDIX.

of the fund. It may be urged that the alteration of the language of the
act in question indicated an intention on the part of the Legislature to re-
turn to the system of distribution established by the act of 1813. But
your committee cannot entertain this view of the subject. The revisors of
the laws were appointed to digest and codify the then existing statute law
of the State. In the performance of this duty, they, in various instances
adopted language which they believed to be more clear, explicit, or appro*
priate than that of the original act. The language of the Revised Statutes,
in relation to the subject under consideration, may perhaps be preferable,
in some respects, to that of the original act of 1824, but it certainly cannot
be construed as intended to alter the legal effect of that law. It relates to
the same subject-matter, and is virtually declared to be a reenactment of
the former act, by the reference contained in the accompanying note ; and
the committee can therefore adopt no rule of construction that would defeat
the object of that act, which it was evidently the design of the revisors and
the Legislature to confirm and perpetuate.

The same remark may be made in relation to the provisions of the Re-
vised Statutes that was made in reference to the act of 1824. If the revisors
or the Legislature intended to include religious corporations among the
recipients of the school fund, they would have used the words " incorpo-
rated religious societies," or words of a similar meaning and import.

There is another important view of the subject to which the committee
would call the attention of the board. The Constitution of the State, in
the following impressive language, secures to every citizen the utmost liberty
of conscience : " The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and
worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed, in
this State, to all mankind." Art. 7, sec. 3. There can be no constitu-
tional guarantee more full and general than this ; and it was certainly the
object of the convention which framed, and of the people who adopted, the
Constitution, to prevent the Legislature of the State, and all other branches
of the Government, from creating any distinctions between citizens on
account of religious faith, or giving to one sect any preference or advantage
over another. That this is the object of the constitutional provision referred
to, none can deny. The question then arises, How far will the appropriation
of the school moneys asked for by the petitioners conflict with the require-
ments and intentions of the Constitution ? This branch of the subject has
been attentively considered by your committee, and they offer the following
as the results of their deliberations :

The people of the State of New York are divided into almost innumer-
able religious sects and denominations. These different sects view the prog-
ress of each other with watchful jealousy. The natural desire that all men
possess, to make converts to the opinions which they have honestly formed
and zealously maintain, ever has led, and ever will lead,- to exertions and
struggles to extend- those opinions to the utmost limit. This is true of all
opinions ; but the history of the world proves- that it applies more justly to
religious opinion than to any other. The Old World, and even our own
country, has witnessed not only religious zeal endeavoring to make prose-

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON ARTS AND SCIENCES. 729

lytes to its own faith by the means of persuasion, argument, and even de-
nunciation ; but persecution for opinion's sake is known to the history of
every civilized government. Religious zeal, degenerating into fanaticism
and bigotry, has covered many battle-fields with its victims ; the stake, the
gibbet, and the prison have fallen to the lot of countless martyrs ; exile
from the land of their nativity, expulsion from the seats of civilization to
the wilderness of the savage, have been experienced by hundreds of almost
every sect, who could not honestly subscribe to the religious opinions of the
majority. To prevent, in our day and country, the recurrence of scenes B<-
abhorrent to every principle of justice, humanity, and right, the Constitu-
tions of the United States and of the several States have declared, in some
form or other, that there should be no establishment of religion by law ;
that the affairs of the State should be kept entirely distinct from, and un-
connected with, those of the Church ; that every human being should wor-
ship God according to the dictates of his own conscience ; that all churches
and religions should be supported by voluntary contribution ; and that no
tax should ever be imposed for the benefit of any denomination of religion,
for any cause or under any pretence whatever. These principles are either
expressly declared in the several constitutions, or arise by necessary implica-
tion from the nature of our Government and the character of our republican
institutions.

In the cases before your committee, the petitioners ask for an appropria-
tion of the public money to the support of schools established by, and con-
ducted under the control of, certain religious corporations ; and these
schools, in the one case, are established principally for the instruction of the
children of indigent members of the Roman Catholic Church. The teach-
ers if your committee are correctly informed are appointed by the trus-
tees of those churches, and the plan of instruction pursued is adopted by
the same officers. This plan includes religious instruction at stated periods,
to be communicated by means of the catechism of the Catholic Church.
Your committee are unable to say positively whether any devotional exer-
cises are used or required in the schools ; but they regard this as immaterial
to be considered in this stage of the question. They are also unable to state
whether any religious instruction is given, or intended to be given, in the
schools of the other petitioners the Scotch Presbyterian Church, and the
Hebrew congregation. The schools sought to be supported from the public
treasury (being controlled by religious corporations) are, to that extent,
religious schools.

To a correct understanding of the relation this case bears to the consti-
tutional provisions and principles hereinbefore referred to, it will be neces-
sary to refer briefly to the sources and present extent of the school fund
appropriated to the city of New York. This fund arises, in part, from the
annual income of the proceeds of lands sold by the State, which belonged
to the people of the State in common, the interest of the United States
Deposit Fund, and also from annual taxation upon the people of this city.

730 APPENDIX.

The amount received from the State Treasury in the

year 1838 was, ..... $34,172.47

Amount of tax raised by the Corporation for common
schools, under the general law relating to common
schools, for the same year, . . . 34,172.47

Amount of tax raised in this city for common school

purposes, under special statutes, in the same year, 73,150.00

$141,494.94

The whole amount received from the school fund of the State, the com-
mon property of the people, is $34,172.47. The amount raised by tax in the
city of New York, for the support of common schools for 1838, was
$107,322.47, or nearly the one twelfth part of the whole amount of taxes
levied in this city.

It is urged, on the part of the Catholic petitioners, that they, as taxpay-
ers, contribute to the fund thus annually raised, and that they are therefore
entitled to participate in its benefits. This is undoubtedly true ; but it
should be borne in mind that they are taxed not as members of the Roman
Catholic Church, but as citizens of the State of New York ; and not for the
purposes of religion, but for the support of civil government. The Consti-
tution acknowledges no distinctions among men on account of their reli-
( gious faith ; and your committee would call the attention of the petitioners
to the fact that our institutions are designed not to create or perpetuate
religious distinctions, but to place all mankind upon a common footing of
equality. Any legal acknowledgment of any religious denomination, as a
dependant upon the public bounty for any kind of pecuniary aid or sup-
port, would be an abandonment of the great constitutional principle, that
the end and aim of all just government is the equal protection of all men in
the free exercise and enjoyment of the rights derived from the written Con-
stitution of the land, or the still higher authority of nature. The appro-
priation of any portion of the public treasure to the Roman Catholic or any
other churches in this city, must be regarded as violative of this great doc-
trine. Admit the correctness of the claim that the Common Council of the
city, or the Legislature of the State, may rightfully appropriate the public
money to the purposes of religious instruction of any kind in any school,
and the consequence will be, that the people are taxed by law for the sup-
port of some one or other of our numerous religious denominations. The
amount of one hundred and seven thousand dollars and upward, as herein-
before stated, has been raised by annual tax in this city, for purposes of a
purely civil and secular character. An appropriation of any portion of that
sum to the support of schools in which the religious tenets of any sect are
taught to any extent, would be a legal establishment of one denomination
of religion over another, would conflict with a.11 the principles and purposes
of our free institutions, and would violate the very letter of that part of our
Constitution which so emphatically declares that " the free exercise and
enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or
preference, shall forever be allowed, in this State, to all mankind." By

EEPOBT OF COMMITTEE ON ARTS AND SCIENCES. 731

granting a portion of the school fund to one sect, to the exclusion of others,
a "preference" is at once created, a "discrimination" is made, and the object
of this great constitutional guarantee is defeated ; taxes are imposed for the
support of religion, and freedom of conscience, if not directly trammelled
and confined, is not left in the perfect and unshackled state which our sys-
tems of government were intended to establish and perpetuate. It requires
no argument to prove that taxation of all sects, for the benefit of one, is a
violation of the rights of conscience. No difference can be perceived, in
principle, between the taxing of the people of England for the support of a
church establishment there, and the taxing of the people of New York for
the support of schools in which the doctrines of religious denominations
are taught here. It is immaterial whether the amount of tax imposed is
great or small ; so long as a tax is imposed for the purposes of religious
instruction to the slightest possible extent, that tax is unauthorized by the
Constitution, violates the rights of conscience, defeats, to some extent, the
purposes, and conflicts with the spirit, of our free institutions.

It may be said, in reply to these observations, that all constitutional diffi-
culties will be removed, by admitting all religious denominations to a partici-
pation in the fund. This, your committee have no doubt, the petitioners would
willingly assent to. The petitioners have no desire of securing a portion of the
fund for themselves, and excluding others from the enjoyment of the same ad-
vantages. They are willing that other sects should establish schools on simi-
lar principles with their own, and that those schools should receive equal en-
couragement from the public with theirs. These remarks are made with a
view to exonerate the petitioners from the. suspicion of having been influ-
enced by selfish or illiberal motives. The committee are fully satisfied that
they have acted under a conviction of duty, but with an erroneous view of
their rights as religious societies, the provisions of the law, and the powers
of the Common Council, and not from a desire to advance the interests of
the several churches to which they are attached, at the expense of the Con-
stitution.

An extension to all other denominations of the bounty asked for by the
petitioners would be not only impracticable, but would be, equally with the
grant sought by the Roman Catholic churches, and the Scotch Presbyterian
and Hebrew congregations, repugnant to the principles of our Government.
If the doctrines of all the religious denominations in the State were taught
in the slightest degree at the expense of the people, under the authority of
law, there would still be a legal religious establishment, not confined to one
or a few sects, it is true, but covering many. Taxes, under such a system,
would still be raised for religious purposes ; and those who professed no
religion, or belonged to no sect, would be taxed for the benefit of those who
did. It is immaterial, in the eye of the law, whether a citizen professes any
or no religious faith ; he is still a citizen, and, as such, is entitled to the free
enjoyment of whatever opinions he may entertain : and there is no differ-
ence, in legal principles, between taxing him for the purpose of educating
the young in the doctrines of many churches, to which he does not belong,
and taxing the Catholic for the benefit of Protestant schools, or taxing the

732 APPENDIX.

Protestant for the support of Catholic seminaries. The rights of conscience
are the same in the oue case as. in the other ; and the cases are identical in
principle, although, in the one instance, but few may deem themselves
injured, and, in the other, thousands may complain of the violation of their
rights as free citizens. No government can rightfully deprive any the
humblest being of the rights which he may derive from nature as a man,
or of those which he possesses as a citizen under the Constitution of his
country.

There are insuperable objections to dividing the school fund among reli-
gious societies for the support of schools. The dependence upon the bounty
of the civil government "which it induces, is as foreign to the nature and
character of the Christian religion as it is hostile to the theory of our Gov-
ernment. Religion needs not the support of secular power ; its appeals are
to the judgments and hearts of men. Truth is its only weapon ; and the
only shield it requires is that of broad and equal protection. Religious lib-
erty is necessary to the free development of religious truth. That liberty
all sects possess in the fullest degree, and no sect can rightfully procure
more. The purity of the Church and the safety of the State are more surely
obtained by a distinct and separate existence of the two than by their
union. The opinions of the American people are settled upon this subject,
and they will observe with jealous anxiety any approaches to a reestablish-
ment of the exploded doctrine that it is the duty of the State to protect
the religious interests of the people, or propagate, at the public expense, the
doctrines of any faith, however true they may be.

The division of the school fund among the different religious denomina-
tions of the city would lead to the most unfortunate results. If a division
of this character should be made, it would be, doubtless, in proportion to
the number of children taught in each school. The schools, although free
to all that might desire to enter, would be mainly sectarian in their charac-
ter. To increase the number of scholars in each school, and thus secure to
themselves as large a share of the public bounty as possible, would be the
natural desire of each denomination. The main object of the interested
parties would be, to make proselytes to their respective faiths, and thus to
increase the power and numerical strength of the several churches, and the
number and extent of the several schools. The consequence of this state of
things it would be difficult to imagine. Jealousies, rivalries, and dissen-
sions would supplant those gentler feelings which should guide and mark
the conduct of men toward each other in civil society. Bigotry, fanaticism,
and violence might assume the place of charity, meekness, and love ; and
thus a train of evils be induced, destructive to the true interests of religion,
and dangerous to the harmony, the permanency, and the freedom of the
State. The history of the world teems with examples of religious excite-
ment degenerating into wild and embittered fanaticism ; jealousies convert-
ed into open dissensions, and dissensions ripening into wars, and those ware
devastating whole nations, until the angry feelings of the partisans were
satiated by the blood of their victims.

If the school money should be divided among the religious denomina-

KEPOKT OF COMMITTEE ON ARTS AND SCIENCES. 733

tions generally, as some have proposed, there will be nothing left for the
support of schools of a purely civil character ; and if there should be, in
such a state of things, any citizen who could not, according to his opinions
of right and wrong, conscientiously send his child to the school of an exist-
ing sect, there would be no public school in which he could be educated.
This might, and probably would, be the case with hundreds of our citizens.
The committee would ask, if any individual could desire to see a fellow-
citizen, however humble he might be, deprived of the opportunity of pro-
curing for his child that education which, as a citizen and a taxpayer, he
has a right to demand ?

An objection is urged by the Roman Catholic petitioners against the
schools of the Public School Society, to the effect that no religious instruc-
tion is there given ; or, if any is given, it is of a character which reflects
upon the doctrines of the Catholic Church. The committee are disposed to
believe that there is some error in relation to this matter. They have been
informed, by the officers of the Public School Society, that no books are
used in their schools which reflect in any degree upon the Catholic Church.
At the meeting of the committee referred to in the preceding part of this
report, several officers of the Public School Society, then present, offered to
submit the text-books of the schools to the inspection of the highest cleri-
cal officers of that Church for examination, and freely proffered to purge
from the exercises and books of the schools every thing (if any could be
found) that exposed the Roman Catholic Church, or any thing connected
with it, to ridicule or censure.

If any books are used in the public schools relating, in the slightest
degree, to the doctrines or ceremonies of the Roman Catholic or any other
religious denomination, the directors of the schools, or other proper officers,
should cause them to be immediately removed. If religious instruction is
communicated, it is foreign to the intentions of the school system, and
should be instantly abandoned. Religious instruction is no part of a com-
mon school education. The church and the fireside are the proper semina-
ries, and parents and pastors are the proper teachers of religion. In their
hands the cause of religion is safe. Let the public schoolmaster confine his
attention to the moral and intellectual education of the young committed to
his charge, and he fully performs the duties of his profession, discharges the
trust reposed in him as a public agent, and fulfils his obligations as a
citizen.

The committee have given the subject referred to them a thorough con-
sideration, and they feel bound to say that, in their opinion, the petitioners,
coming before the Common Council in the capacity of religious denomina-
tions, have not made out a valid claim to a participation in the common
school fund in that capacity. The reasons that have led the committee to
this conclusion are hereinbefore stated. The intentions of the Legislature,
the will of the people as expressed through their representatives, and the
imperative requirements of the Constitution, preclude the Common Council
(in the opinion of the committee) from granting their petitions. In arriv-
ing at this opinion, the committee have not had reference to one or a few,

734 APPENDIX.

but to all denominations in religion ; and had such a petition been present-
ed from the other denominations in this city, all would have received from
the committee the answer that is given to these. No desire exists to include
one sect in the benefits of the school fund, and exclude others, but the object
of the committee has been, to keep that fund sacredly appropriated to the
purposes for which it was created the purposes of free and common secular
education. To this purpose all the provisions of our lav?s and all the re-
quirements of our Constitution invariably tend ; and the committee can do
nothing but suggest to the board that the obligations of the laws and the
Constitution are such, that the appropriation of the school fund asked for
in the several petitions before them, cannot be rightfully granted.

In this opinion, your committee hope, the board, the petitioners, and the
public will concur. The question is one of that character which appeals to
the liveliest feelings of our nature, and. one which is too apt to create ex-
citement and jealousy. That this may not be the case among any portion
of our citizens, your committee most earnestly desire. They conclude by
expressing the hope that the petitioners, upon a full examination of the
question, will perceive that the granting of their petition would be at least
of doubtful legality, foreign to the design of the school fund, and at vari-
ance with the spirit of our public institutions.

The committee ask to be discharged from the further consideration of
the subject.

All which is respectfully submitted.

CHARLES J. DODGE,

DAVID GRAHAM, JR., >

Committee on Arts
THOMAS'CO^R, ~ ' i ^ Sconces, &c.

DOCUMENT NO. 22.

HOARD OF AI.DKUMEX, July 26, 1811.

Report of the Commissioners of School Moneys for the year ending May
1st, 1841. Laid on the table, and double the usual number of copies
ordered to be printed. SAMUEL J. WILLIS, Clerk.

To the Corporation of the City of New York, and the Superintendent of Com-
mon Schools of the State of New York.

[The report opens with a summary of the condition of the schools for
the year, with the moneys received and expended. The commissioners state
that officially they do not know, or care to know, any differences of religious
doctrine, and proceed : ]

* * Their office is one in which their individual

convenience and avocations are very often made to yield to their public
duty ; which is unconnected with any power of patronage or favor ; which

REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 735

they*have always been willing to resign to any who, with their amount of
zeal, would surpass their humble ability ; which was accepted only because
some must perform it, and none who can attend to it faithfully should re-
fuse ; and which has rendered no compensating return, but in the feelings
awakened by the immense public benefits of which it has made them the
witnesses.

It is well known that the education of the youth of this city, by means
of the public fund devoted to that purpose, has been placed mainly in the
hands of a body of .citizens denominated " The Public School Society of
the City of New York." So inconsiderable are the exceptions from this
control, and so peculiar the circumstances under which each exception is
made, tha't the citizens alluded to may be deemed to have the entire prac-
tical execution of the city system of instruction committed to them, sub-
ject only to the limitations and government hereafter adverted to. In this
broad view we shall consider the Society throughout this report.

As erroneous impressions partially exist in matters which ought to be
better understood, it will be proper to prepare the way for their correction
by some statements in regard to the fund devoted to public education in
this city ; to the body by whom the schools are designated which partake
of that public fund ; to the officers by whom the division of it is made ;
and to the composition and performance of the Public School Society.
These details will swell this report beyond the compass within which we
had hoped to confine it ; but their importance and necessity seem so mani-
fest, that we must run the hazard of prolixity.

The public fund, then, assigned to the education of youth in this city is
derived, to the extent of somewhat more than one fourth part of its amount,
from our just proportion of the income of certain funds of the State ; an
equal sum is raised by taxation on the real and personal estate in the city,
by virtue of a general law which places the city, in that respect, under the
like ratable burden imposed on the inhabitants of the rest of the State, for
purposes of education. In addition to these amounts, however, a tax, pecu-
liar and confined to the city, is raised on the real and personal estate within
it, of a sum almost equalling both the proportions of the fund which are
before mentioned. The latter tax grew out of the willingness of our citi-
zens to pay this further amount in order to secure to our community the
comprehensive, liberal, and efficient system of education adopted by the
Public School Society. If this object shall be defeated, wholly or partially,
by a discouragement of their schools, and the substitution of establishments
of less general benefit, the repeal or the non-assessment of the additional
tax would, we presume, follow as a matter of course.

The designation of the schools which participate of the above fund is
confided to the Corporation of the city ; the members of the Common Coun-
cil being annually chosen for the several wards by the citizens of the wards
possessing the like qualifications as the electors for members of the State
Legislature ; and the Mayor, or corporate head, who has a veto on their
proceedings, being elected by the whole body of citizens authorized to vote
for members of the Common Council. The Corporation is required by law

736 APPENDIX.

to prescribe the rules and regulations under which the public moneys shall
be distributed, and provision has accordingly been made for protecting the
rights of the people in the -schools of the Society, for the due supervision
of the schools, both on the part of the public and of the trustees, and for
securing from the schools a full performance of all their obligations. A
failure in the performance would be followed by the penalty of a withdrawal
of the fund appropriated for the support of the schools.

The payment of the school moneys, which is regulated by rules pre-
scribed by law, is committed to a Board of Commissioners chosen by the
people of the city through their representatives in the Common Council, in
a mode analogous to that by which appointments are made by the State
Legislature, to the offices of Secretary of State (who is ex-offitio the super-
intendent of all the common schools of the State), State Treasurer, Comp-
troller, Canal Commissioners, Senators in Congress, &c. One commissioner
of school money is thus selected from each ward, for the term of three years,
and any vacancy in their board is supplied by the Common Council for the
residue of the term. The moneys to be distributed are lodged by the cham-
berlain of the city, to the credit .of the commissioners, in an incorporated
bank, from which they are drawn only by checks signed at a meeting of the
board, by a majority of the commissioners, and made payable to the Society.
The commissioners are bound to make visits half-yearly at least, to all the
schools ; which duty is performed, as to such of the primary schools as arc
not held in the same building as the public schools, by committees ; and as
to the residue, and to all the public schools, by the whole board. The
board, before making these general visits, are bound to give three days'
notice of the intended visitation to all the members of the Common Coun-
cil, and to such members of the Legislature as reside in the city ; and some
of these representatives of the people always accompany the board on such
occasions. The examinations of the pupils are invariably made at the
opening of the book, by any commissioner or visitor named by the chair-
man, at the instant, without any knowledge until that moment, on the part
of the examiner, teacher, or pupil, what book or subject would be selected,
or what individual would conduct it. The Board of Commissioners have,
beside their stated quarterly meetings, a sufficient number of meetings for
the half-yearly visitations, and special meetings whenever.occasion requires ;
and they perform, individually or by committees, any duties which their
office may demand, additional to those above enumerated. Of all their pro-
ceedings and reports a regular record is kept ; and fines are, by a voluntary
regulation, exacted from absentees from their meetings, without sufficient
excuse, to be judged of by the whole board. Their actual expenses, not
exceeding $500 in any year, are reimbursed to them. Reports, annually
made according to law, to the Superintendent of Common Schools and to
the Corporation of the city, show the division of the school moneys, and
the manner in which those allotted the preceding year have been expended.
They also show the average number of scholars who have belonged to the
schools within each quarter, and the average attendances during the whole
year ; the year being arbitrarily composed of five hundred half days, and

REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 737

the distribution being determined upon the latter average. In regard to
attendances, the law of the State prescribes a different mode of reporting
them for this city, as distinguished from the rest of the State ; the attend-
ances reported from the district schools in the latter, embracing every pupil
who has been at school for even a single day, and the distribution being
governed by the whole number of children residing within the respective
districts, without regard to the'extent or duration of their attendance.

The Public School Society, to whom the daily conduct of the schools is
committed, is, in effect, under the laws of the State and of the Corporation
of New York, the body of citizens possessing the qualifications prescribed
by the Legislature, and the regulations it has authorized, to entitle them to
become voters at the election of trustees of the schools which carry out the
system of general education in the city. The qualification consists in the
payment at any time of the sum of $10, which forever entitles the contribu-
tor to this elective franchise ; and, as will be seen hereafter, is founded on a
more liberal principle than the qualification prescribed for voters for trustees
of the common schools of the rest of the State. The Society has the cor-
porate powers often annexed to other franchises, suitable to the accomplish-
ment of its objects ; and does not differ in character in this respect from
the quasi-corporations which regulate the district schools. No control can
be exercised by the Society over the admission of a member ; the franchise
being obtained as a matter of right, by any citizen, without election, solici-
tation, or badge of sect or party, by the mere act of the contribution. No
one can be excluded from the qualification, who chooses to submit to its re-
quirements ; and its essentials are such as every industrious, prudent citizen
can attain, by renouncing, for a short time, superfluities or injurious indul-
gences. The contribution is equal to a perpetuity of only seventy cents per
year. Fifty trustees are annually elected by these voters from their own
body. The Society has, in practice, generally adopted the wise policy of
preferring those who, in a former execution of the same office, had signal-
ized themselves by their assiduous and persevering attention. An abstract,
exhibiting the extent of each trustee's visitation and superintendence during
the antecedent year, is compiled from the school records, and publicly shown
at every election, when inexcusable omission of duty meets its due requital.
These fifty, of the very elite of the Society, as regards the love of the labor
committed to them, and of its faithful discharge, may choose, if they think
proper, an equal number of the whole body entitled to vote, as associate
trustees ; and in doing so, they elect those whom it is supposed will be
most ardent and efficient in the performance of their duty. Such is the
formation of the Board of Trustees. For the practical performance of their
duty in the supervision of the schools, the weekly examination of the pupils,
and the occasional advice necessary for the teachers, the trustees are divided
into sections, each embracing one public school-building, and the primary
schools attached thereto. Each section meets once in each month, to con-
sider the concerns and interests of its own schools, and to appoint school
committees to superintend them during the recess of the section, and dis-
charge the duties of examination and advice before mentioned. In books
47

738 APPENDIX.

of minutes, kept at each of the schools, each member of the committee must
note his attendances, and write any transactions worthy of record. This
book is produced and read at the stated monthly meetings of the section,
who make a quarterly report to the whole Board of Trustees, embracing a
view of the state of the schools of the section ; of its own proceedings, and
those of its committees ; of the number of times each member of the School
Committee has, during the quarter, visited the schools ; and of any propo-
sitions intended for the consideration of the Board of Trustees at its quar-
terly meetings. An Executive Committee, of which the chairman of such
section is ex officio a member, is charged with the general superintending
care of the schools during the recess of the Board of Trustees ; and meet
accordingly once in each month, and oftener, at the request of either of
their number. This committee reports annually, on the general state of the
schools, to the Board of Trustees ; who, from the materials obtained from
all the reports presented to them, and their own observation, report to the
Society at large. In addition to their quarterly meetings, meetings of all
the trustees are annually held in school hours, in each of the schools, for
the purpose of general inspection.

The trustees are obliged, annually, to report to the Corporation of the
city, and to the Superintendent of Common Schools, " a particular account
of the state of their schools, and of the moneys received and expended by
them the year preceding, so as to exhibit a full and perfect statement of the
property, funds, and affairs of the Society."

The schools of the Society are designated by the names of Primary and
Public. The former, of which all the teachers are females, are open to all
girls over four years of age, and to boys between four and ten. In these the
simplest elements of literary education are taught ; and also, among the
girls, plain sewing. Perfection in the studies of a lower class is requisite
before a child is advanced to a higher. When a pupil has learned to spell
correctly and deliberately, read audibly, and write pretty well on the slates,
a recommendation is given by the teacher for admission into a public school,
and, after satisfactory examination, the child is advanced. It is enjoined
as a duty on the teachers of these schools, to make themselves acquainted
with the inhabitants of the district in which the school is located, and par-
ticularly with those of the poorest classes, in order to induce them to send
their children to school. The better to ensure the attention of the teachers
to this duty, the amount of their pay is made dependent on the number of
children under their tuition.

In the public schools, where due provision is also made for the tuition
of boys over the age of ten years, who have not acquired the knowledge
imparted by the primary schools, the tuition of the boys and of the girls is
conducted in separate rooms of the school-house, under teachers of their
own sex. The course of instruction for the boys embraces spelling, reading,
including definitions and questions concerning the meaning of the author,
writing, making and mending pens, arithmetic, geography, use of the globes
and drawing of maps, English grammar, composition and declamation, book-
keeping and the elements of history, astronomy, algebra, geometry, and trigo-

REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 739

nometry, respectively. The girls are taught in all these branches, except decla-
mation, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, and with the addition of needle-
work. Strict rules of the Society secure the punctual attendance of the teach-
ers ; their attention to the comfort, cleanliness, and morals of the scholars, to
the ventilation and temperature of the school-rooms, to the causes of the ab-
sence of pupils, and to the care of the children, as far as possible, both in and
out of the schools. The mildest punishments which can produce reform are
alone resorted to, and the teachers can expel a pupil only with the consent of
the School Committee or of the section, for habitual disregard of duty or
flagrant offence of which the reason must be communicated to the parent,
who may appeal to the Board of Trustees. Registers kept of the names and
occupations of the parents, the names of the children, and of the attend-
ance, merits, and deficiences of the latter, are duly exhibited to the trustees.
The system of teaching throughout the schools is uniform, so that a child
removing from one neighborhood to another is not interrupted in his course
by the change of his school. But in order to obtain any advantages that
may accrue from the experience of the teachers, or the suggestions of others,
stated meetings are held by the teachers for the purpose of considering the
means of improving their schools, at which meetings, also, they compare
the progress of the schools respectively. Any improvement in the mode of
teaching recommended by a majority of them, if formally approved of by
the trustees, is adopted in practice.

Each school is provided with a thermometer, in order to regulate the
temperature of the school in the cold season ; and in each public school-
building a library is contained, of the value of not less than $50, nor more
than one $100, consisting of books of voyages, travels, history, &c., to which
such pupils as may be selected by the teacher, on account of proficiency and
good conduct, are admitted, and may take home from thence one book at a
time.

The schools are all divided into classes, pursuing in each the same stud-
ies. A mere certificate, properly authenticated, that a child is within the
ages of four and sixteen years, entitles him to admission in the schools ; and
the tuition and all books and materials necessary for the education of the
pupil are furnished without cost to his parents or guardians.

By these regulations, governing the Society and its schools and other
auxiliary provisions, a constant supervision is kept over the scholars, the
teachers, the Board of Trustees, its sections, committees, and individual
members, producing among all the greatest zeal and emulation for the
accomplishment of the public aim in view, and resulting in a practical edu-
cation, offered to the whole youth of the city, carried out in all it's bearings
with a perfection and efficiency which challenge a comparison of the schools
with any others in the world professing the like range of instruction. More
than one hundred of these schools are now scattered throughout the city,
determined in their location by the wants of the respective neighborhoods,
and inviting, by means of agents who patrol the districts for the purpose,
every poor and destitute child whose parents are insensible to their duty to
their offspring, to come and partake of the benefits within his reach. Nearly

740 APPENDIX.

forty thousand children have, during the year ending the first day of May
last, been enrolled on their registers, and obtained instruction for a greater
or lesser period. All this good is effected without the payment of any sal-
ary or expenditure, other than the compensation of teachers and agents, the
purchase of books and necessaries for the instruction of the pupils, and the
erection and repair of the school-houses. No personal oc individual advan-
tage results to the trustees from their services, which, springing from the
noblest feelings of the human heart, secure gratuitously public benefits of a
character and extent that mercenary motives could never accomplish.

Blessings of the magnitude and interest we have described ought to be
carefully cherished by all who can exercise any control over them, and the
hand of experiment should be stayed from an interference that, with mere
partial objects of disputed utility, might impair or destroy the general bene-
fit. Sensible of these truths, the great body of the citizens of New York,
and their representatives in their local Legislature, far from asking any alter-
ation in the system, have uniformly approved of and defended it. A num-
ber of persons, however, mostly of foreign birth, and belonging to a respect-
able denomination of Christians the Roman Catholic have solicited a
change, on the ground that their conscientious scruples require that any
schools in which the children of their communion are educated shall, during
a certain part of the day, combine the religious instruction of their faith
with the literary studies pursued in them. It is proper to add, that by no
other denomination has any complaint been made, and that we understand
that the sentiment alluded to is not general among the Catholic residents
among us from abroad ; a large proportion of them believing that the pro-
posed schools would be, for the most part, composed of the children of for-
eigners, who might thus lose, in a great measure, the temporal benefits to be
derived from an association, at school, with the native children of the repub-
lic, and that the fitting place for sectarian culture is the pupil's home, or his
church. At the solicitation, however, before referred to, projects have been
submitted to the consideration of the Legislature, which, if adopted, would,
we believe, violate the received political maxims which have governed our
country, and erect, over the ruins of the noble structure we have described,
institutions of narrow and partial utility, exclusive in their composition and
government, and condemned by former experience.

Vague and general rumors having found their way to the public, affect-
ing the character and efficiency of the schools, and impugning the conduct
of the trustees of the Public School Society, several gentlemen of the city,
described by the Secretary of State to be " eminently qualified," were select-
ed by him for the purpose of making a personal examination of the schools,
who diligently conducted a laborious inquiry, and submitted to that func-
tionary u a mass of valuable information." In his report to the Legislature
on the subject of the system of education here, he bears the testimony which
will ever be the consequence of such investigations, as long as the schools
are conducted as they have hitherto been. " The results of these inquiries "
we copy his language " show very satisfactorily that commodious houses
and good teachers are provided by the Public School Society ; that the sys-

REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 741

tern of instruction is well devised and faithfully executed ; that an efficient
plan of visitation and inspection is prescribed by the trustees ; and, although
he has not positive information on the subject, he has no reason to doubt
that such a plan is carried into practical execution." " Certain it is," he
adds, " that the trustees of the Society have exhibited the most praisewor-
thy zeal and devotion in discharge of the great trust devolved on them ;
and many, if not all of them, have spared no exertions to bring into the
schools the destitute children of the city." But notwithstanding these
favorable results of the efforts of the Public School Society, the Secretary
of State informs the Legislature that the memorials referred to ' ; complain
of the operation of a system which, in fact, devolves upon any private cor-
poration the discharge of one of the most important functions of the Gov-
ernment, without that responsibility to the people which is provided in all
other cases. They allege," he states, " that, in its administration, the con-
scientious opinions and feelings of large classes of citizens are disregarded ;
that other schools, maintained for the same objects and accomplishing the
same benevolent results, are arbitrarily excluded from a participation of a
common fund, collected by the joint contributions of all ; and that a
fearfully large portion of the indigent children are not reached, or in any
way benefited, by the system of public education which now prevails."
After a long examination of the subject, he recommends, nevertheless, the
continuance of the very schools against which such grave objections are
advanced, modifying their powers, however, in such wise as to impart to
them the character of charity schools, in which no children are to be in-
structed gratuitously but those of parents whose poverty is proved in exemp-
tion of payment, and subjecting to charge the children of all whose means
have exposed them to a double taxation for the support of the system, or
who have too much self-respect to claim the privilege of paupers. He pro-
poses to engraft on the existing system provisions introducing the district
plan in operation in the rest of the State, confining gratuitous instruction in
the schools as before mentioned. These propositions are combined with
some others which will hereafter be adverted to, in referring to the bill
introduced into the Senate, which, we fear, if adopted, will connect the
schools with the political struggles at the polls ; contemplating, as they do,
the creation of offices sufficiently lucrative to tempt the cupidity of the par-
tisan, and thus making institutions intended for the advancement of the
young along the quiet paths of learning, the sport of party management,
contention, and triumph. Of the district system, it is here, perhaps, the
proper place to say seeing that the bill in the Senate does not adopt that
part of the recommendation that we believe it to be wholly unsuited to
the city, whose population is frequently changing residence from one dis-
trict to another ; and that schools teaching by dissimilar books, classes, and
modes of tuition would be of at least doubtful advantage to the children
of the city. Other objections to this plan exist which it is needless to enu-
merate, when the fact is before our eyes that the Commissioners of Common
Schools in Brooklyn, a city separated from our own only by the intervening
river, and whose population more resembles ours in its composition and hab-

742 APPENDIX.

its than any other in the State, have pronounced the district system to be
inefficient and inapplicable there, and lament that they do not possess
schools founded on the plan of those of the Public School Society of New
York. Of 7,966 children residing in Brooklyn, between the ages of five and
sixteen years, only 2,274 appear, by the last schedules presented to the Legis-
lature, to have attended these schools for any period ; being about in the
ratio, of twenty-three out of eighty. In Williamsburgh, an adjoining com-
munity on the same side of the river, where the district system also prevails,
only 136 attended out of 943 ; being in the proportion of one out of seven.

Leaving, then, the further consideration of the results of the district sys-
tem, \vhich we deem to be virtually abandoned as respects this city, we
advert to the .objections alleged by the memorials of a portion of the reli-
gious sect to which we have before referred. We shall consider them in the
order they have been mentioned.

The Catholic memorials complain, first, of the operation of the system
which places the education of the youth of the city under the direction of
the Public School Society, as " devolving upon a private corporation the
discharge of one of the most important functions of the Government, with-
out that responsibility to the people which is provided in all other cases."

Let us look into this allegation.

In the discussion regarding the Public School Society, it has been
thought advisable not only to denominate it a private corporation, but, in
some of the publications and speeches that have been made on the subject,
it has been branded as a close corporation. What attribute it has of a close
corporation, no scrutiny has enabled us to discover. That name can be
strictly applied only where the trustees, or other governors, constitute the
whole corporation, and, in case of vacancy in the board, supply the succes-
sion by their own votes. The freest definition could only extend it to insti-
tutions who are judges of their own members, and can admit to or exclude
from their privileges at the volition of the corporation itself. No such
characteristic belongs to the Public School Society. How far it can justly
be considered a private corporation, has been seen in the requisites to mem-
bership, to which we have adverted. Erected by a law of the State, for the
avowed attainment of a momentous public object, in the benefits of which
every child of that public to which their sphere of action is confined may
participate ; open, as to membership, to the whole public who choose to
acquire the qualification prescribed by the Legislature of this State, as the
only requisite to admission, and which depends alone on the act of the indi-
vidual, without regard to any wish or objection on the part of the other
members ; subject to the supervision of officers appointed by the representa-
tives of the whole people of the city ; and submitting their accounts to the
inspection and scrutiny of those representatives, and, through the publica-
tions of the latter, of the whole people we apprehend that the corporation
has been denominated a private one without due reflection. It is not to bfc
regarded in that light, but as the body of voters in the city of New York,
on whom the Legislature of the State, representing the sovereignty of the
whole people, have thought tit to devolve, through their own enactments, and

KEPOKT OF COMMISSIONEKS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 743

the powers they have conferred on the Corporation of the city, the selection
of the guardians and supervisors of public education within the city. The
qualification to constitute a voter is a single payment of a small sum of
money, which every man of correct habits may soon lay aside out of his
earnings, if he feel any interest in the cause of education. The Legislature,
in 1826, when they changed the charity formerly called the Free-School
Society of New York, whose tutition was confined to the children of parents
unable to pay for their education, into the Public School Society, for the
purpose, as the statute expresses it, " so far as their means may extend, for
the education of all children in the city of New York not otherwise pro-
vided for ; whether such Children be or be not the proper objects of gratui-
tous education, and without regard to the religious sect or denomination to
which such children or their parents may belong," evidently expected that
the education of all the children- in the city, whose parents did not prefer to
send them to pay schools, would fall under the control of the Public School
Society. They therefore defined, by law, the qualification that would be
required from any person desirous of being a voter at the election of trus-
tees of the public schools. Proceeding, probably, on the belief tha't all men
are not equally qualified by education and habit to judge of the necessary
attainments for the beneficial discharge of a literary duty, they deemed some
other qualification than mere residence necessary, and fixed upon one in the
nature of a property qualification, which, however temporary in its posses-
sion, would, It was supposed, be durable in its results. Each intended voter
was required to make a single payment of ten dollars, for which the privi-
lege sought was promised him for life. This qualification is somewhat anal-
ogous to that prescribed for voters at elections of trustees of common
schools in the other parts of the State, which is strictly a property qualifi-
cation, though, if not durable in its possession, is only temporary in its
results every person being subject to a fine of the very same sum of ten
dollars for voting at any annual election for trustees of a common school,
unless he be a freeholder within the town where he votes ; be assessed the
same year in which he votes, or the preceding year, to pay taxes in said
town ; or possess personal property liable to taxation, in the school district,
of the value of fifty dollars over and above the list of articles exempted
from execution. Between the elective privilege in the city and the country
there will be seen this striking difference, that, in the city, the individual
who at any time possesses and pays over a ten- dollar bill, which, if of gen-
eral circulation, may pass hence in a few hours to Plattsburg or Buffalo;
obtains a privilege which, whatever be his subsequent fortunes, always
accompanies him, and is promised to continue forever ; but as regards the
country resident, the property qualification is connected with local owner-
ship, and must be continued in its possession ; for if, after having been the
possessor of real or personal property, in his town or his school district, or
paid taxes in his town, he become irretrievably ruined, his privilege sinks
with his fortunes, and is lost forever.

That the Society is a private corporation, cannot, therefore, be success-
fully sustained. Equally untenable, in our opinion, is the allegation that

744 APPENDIX.

the function discharged by the Society is performed " without that respon-
sibility to the people which is provided in all other cases." The trustees
are placed under the direction of the representatives of the people of the
very community in which they perform their functions, who, upon any
unfaithfulness on the part of the trustees, can deprive them and their con-
stituents of the power conferred on them, and of the funds necessary for its
execution. The Society is compelled, by the law of the State, to conform
to any rules and restrictions in regard to the receipt of the public moneys
which the Corporation of the city may by ordinance prescribe ; and the
ordinance passed accordingly by the Corporation subjects them to every rule
and restriction that has been deemed proper to secure a strict supervision
and accountability. The Commissioners of School Moneys, by whom the
visitations to the schools are made on behalf of the community, are charged
to report to the Common Council any failure or omission of the trustees in
regard to the public moneys they receive, in regard to the admission of chil-
dren to the schools, and to the proper weekly visitation and inspection, on
the part of the trustees, of all the schools under their direction. The books
of the schools, containing the memoranda of this performance, are at all
times subject to the examination of the commissioners, to whom the returns
required by law are made under oath or affirmation. In addition to these
guards, the Society is obliged to submit, in an annual report to the Superin-
tendent of Common Schools appointed by the State, and to the Common
Council of the city, a particular account of the state of their schools, and
of the moneys received and expended by them, which may be examined by
any citizen disposed to investigate it.

These provisions, if in any manner they differ from those generally gov-
erning officers who perform important functions of the Government, certain-
ly secure, in degree, as ample a responsibility to the people. The Society
has now exercised the powers confided to them for more than fifteen years,
and in that whole period no valid impeachment has been preferred of infi-
delity to their trust.

It may be added, in connection with this matter, that, in all the plans
which have been devised for the alteration of the present system, not a sin-
gle provision has been suggested that guarantees from the Public School
Society, or the proposed additional schools, increased responsibility to the
people.

The second charge assumes that, " in the administration of the Society,
the conscientious opinions and feelings of large classes of citizens are disre-
garded; and that other schools, maintained for the same objects and accom-
plishing the same benevolent results, are arbitrarily excluded from a partici-
pation of a common fund collected by the joint contribution of all.''

General allegations like the aforegoing give no definite conception of the
matter of complaint, and present no tangible point for examination. It
were better always, and particularly in cases affecting such momentous inter-
ests as are involved in the school question, that the griefs should be dis-
tinctly alleged, and specifications offered. It is, however, now generally
understood, from newspaper publications of essays and speeches, that the

KEPOKT OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 745

violence imputed against conscientious opinions and feelings is to those of
a part of the Catholic communion, who alone constitute the large classes of
citizens alluded to ; that the schools attached to their churches, governed
by trustees of their own appointment, conducted according to their precepts
of religious faith, and ministering, as may well be inferred, to children only
of their own denomination, are the schools said to be maintained for the
same objects, and accomplishing the same benevolent results, as those of
the Public School Society ; and that the arbitrary exclusion from a partici-
pation in the common fund collected by the joint contribution of all, which
is complained of, is the refusal, by the immediate representatives of the peo-
ple of this city, to devote a portion of the public moneys toward the sup-
port of schools erected and governed by the Catholic denomination, and
inculcating their distinguishing forms and creeds.

That the objects and results of institutions founded and acting upon
principles so widely different as those which distinguish the schools of the
sect and of the Society cannot be very similar, is too apparent to need illus-
tration ; and if the disregard of the conscientious opinions and feelings of
large classes of citizens in the administration of the Society consists, as is
inferred, in maintaining a perfect impartiality toward the several religious
denominations in the schools, not giving reasonable offence, nor yielding
submission to any, the Society has done no more than to be faithful to the
purposes for which it was created. The motive to its incorporation is
stated, in the charter, to be the education of all children, whether or not
they be proper objects of gratuitous education, and without regard to the
religious sect or denomination to which their parents belong ; and it would
have been a plain infraction of their duty to fashion the exercises of the
schools according to the requirements of any particular Church.

The allegation remains, that the sect is arbitrarily excluded from a par-
ticipation of a common fund collected by the joint contribution of all.

In adopting a system of general education at the public expense, the
object of the State was to give to its youth such an education as would fit
them to discharge the civil obligations of this life, leaving it to their natu-
ral and ecclesiastical guardians to prepare them, through a parental and
spiritual ministry, to render their account in another world. There ought
to be. and there must be, some common platform on which all the children
may obtain their secular education, who are destined to act as citizens of
the same republic. To that general training all the children are entitled ;
but it is the public who are to determine on its particulars and conditions,
and not the parents who may claim it for their offspring. That a fund has
been raised by the taxation of all for general education, creates no right in
the tax-paying sectarian to demand that any portion of it be appropriated
to the spread of his particular creed. The tax was imposed on him as a
citizen, not as the member of a church. Its object was to provide for a
civil purpose exclusively; not to prepare the path to any designated place
of worship. The erection of a church school announces a sectarian object.
It has its exclusive rules of system and government ; is superintended by
trustees and teachers of a particular faith ; religious conformity is indispen-

746 APPENDIX.

sable to a participation in its direction, which is not, and cannot be, attained
by means of a civil qualification that any citizen may acquire. It is, in
truth, a part of the church establishment, and the sectarian of another de-
nomination justly feels that his privileges are equally violated, whether he
be taxed for the support of its religious teacher at the school desk, or for
that of its religious teacher in the pulpit. This State has never yet asserted
the power to tax its people for ecclesiastical objects ; and if its sovereignty
comprehends such a power, the rights of conscience require that the reli-
gion of the taxpayer be recorded on the assessment-roll, and his contribution
be dealt to the encouragement of his own communion.

An obstacle arises, perhaps, out of the provisions of our Constitution, to
the establishment and conduct of a sectarian school as a part of the public
system, which would be insuperable to some of the claims which have been
brought before the public. If the religion of the sect be a necessary part
of the education of the children, the choice of a teacher adequate to the
accomplishment of that object would seem to be indispensable. Such a
teacher would probably be found only in the person of one of the ministers
of the religion which the school is to inculcate. If the school which is
committed to his direction be adopted as a part of the public system, his
office thereafter assumes a civil character ; his salary is paid by the whole
public out of the proceeds of a general tax. The question immediately
arises, whether this would not be inconsistent with the clause of the Consti-
tution which declares that " no minister of the gospel, or priest of any de-
nomination whatsoever, shall at any time, under any pretence or description
whatever, be eligible to, or capable of holding, any civil or military office
or place within this State."

The commissioners would suggest, that any difficulties in regard to the
religious education of the children, which may be desirable, can be accom-
plished without a violation of the principles or a departure from the objects
of the school system, by an application of the rule said to prevail in Hol-
land in regard to the schools controlled by the Government. A time is
there set apart when the children of the respective denominations are
requested to repair to the appropriate places for their peculiar worship,
where they are attended by the proper ministers to their spiritual wants.
If the Sabbath and the other day in the week on which the public schools
are closed be insufficient for this purpose, some additional portion of the
week might be dedicated to it. The arrangement would certainly throw an
additional burden on the clergy without additional pecuniary recompense,
but their commendable sense of duty in their sacred office would no doubt
disregard any considerations of that sort.

The remaining allegation is, that " a fearfully large portion of the indi-
gent children are not reached, or in any way benefited," by the system of
education that now prevails in this city. Fortunately, this is a subject that
can be brought to the test of mathematical calculation, by which the figures
will show that the system of education in this city reaches and benefits the
indigent poor far more efficaciously than the system that prevails in the resi-
due of the State.

REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 747

In order to prove the destitution of the inhabitants of the city in respect
to education, the Secretary of State reports to the Legislature that the
whole number of white children in New York in 1840, " the year in which
the last census of the United States was taken, was 62,952, and that 30,758
only are returned as attending some school, leaving 32,194 who were not in
attendance on any school whatever." Of the accuracy of the number of
attendances thus returned from the city doubts have been well entertained,
but we shall assume that the aggregate is correct. The inference that all
would draw from the manner in which the case is stated and the argument
deduced by the Secretary, is, that a fraction more than one half of the chil-
dren of the city are trained up in utter ignorance. " With all the com-
mendable and vigorous efforts of the trustees of the Public School Society,"
he says, " it cannot be denied that less than one half the children between
four and sixteen years of age, in the city of New York, are receiving the
benefits of any education whatever." A moment's reflection will correct this
error. The schools of the Society receive all children between four and six-
teen years of age ; let us say, however, in order to make our estimate tally
with the figures of the Secretary, between five and sixteen years. At any
time within the portion of their lives embracing eleven years, then, they
have access to the schools, and in these there is continual change, some
retiring, and new scholars succeeding. Now, if one half of this class of
population, rejecting fractions, is, on the average, kept at school, it is evi-
dent that, on the average, each child would receive five and a half years of
tuition, which, in the New York schools, deducting vacations, amounts to
somewhat more than sixty months, or five full and complete years without
deduction. In imposing on masters the obligation to teach certain children
to read and write, the law of the State gives him the alternative of furnish-
ing two years' education, as being sufficient for the purpose ; and that, too,
while, by another law, the common schools of the country are not required to
be open more than four months in the year to entitle them to the benefits of
the school fund. If eight months', or even twenty-four months' tuition, in
such schools as the inhabitants are obliged to accept in some parts of the
State, be recognized by the State as enough to qualify a child to read and
write, sixty months' tuition in the schools of the New York Public School
Society would not be likely to consign him to hopeless mental destitution.
A far less period of education in their youth, and that, in many cases, of an
inferior sort, is all that was enjoyed by many of the men who have illus-
trated the character of our country in the literary and philosophical world.
Doctor Franklin seems, from his autobiography, to have been finally taken
from school at the age of ten years, to perform the humblest offices in his
father's business of a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, having " failed en-
tirely in arithmetic," though he had " learned to write a good hand," and
gained instruction in some other branches.

" A comparison of the results obtained from statistical returns," says the
Secretary of State, " between the numbers educated in New York and those
instructed in other parts of the State, will exhibit in a more striking man-
ner the lamentable deficiency of the former. It appears," he proceeds,

748 APPENDIX.

" from the report of the Superintendent before referred to, that, while there
are 592,000 children out of the city of New York between the ages of five
and sixteen, there are 549,000 attending the common schools. In the city
of New York," he adds, " the proportions were, as above stated, 62,952 chil-
dren between the same ages, and 30,758 attending all the schools, public as
well as private." In another place he states " that, while the Public School
Society has registered on its books the names of children who have entered
the schools to the number of 22,955, the average actual attendance of pupils
amounts only to 13,189."

It was certainly not the intention of the Secretary of State to do injus-
tice to the city in the comparison thus drawn. In making it, however, he
seems to have forgotten that the returns from the common schools and the
public schools differ altogether in their ingredients, and furnish no proper
materials for a comparative estimate in regard to them. In the returns of
the common schools, all the children who have attended are indiscriminately
numbered as instructed in the schools, whatever be the duration of their
attendance, whether for a year, a week, or a day, and whatever be the
amount of the tuition they receive. But a different mode of return is pre-
scribed for the city, as distinguished from the rest of the State. From the
city it is required that there be two columns of returns, neither of which
shows the whole number of children " registered " on the books of the pub-
lic schools ; nor has that number accordingly ever been returned until the
present year, when it is done as the voluntary act of the Commissioners of
School Money, without requirement by law. It amounts, this year, to nearly
40,000, and could not have been, in the year referred to by the Secretary,
less than 38,000.

The returns demanded by law from the city are, firstly, a return of the
average quarterly attendance in the schools ; the number to be ascertained
to follow the words of the statute " by adding to the number of chil-
dren on register at the commencement of each quarter, the number admit-
ted during that quarter, and the total to be considered the average of that
quarter." Secondly, a return of the average number that actually attended
the school during the whole year, to be ascertained by the teachers keeping
an account of the number of scholars present every half day, which, being
added together and divide.d by 500, the number of half school-flays of
which the year is arbitrarily declared to consist, is considered the average
of attending scholars.

That no just contrast can be drawn from numbers representing, as in the
country returns, every child as an attending scholar who had visited the
school but for a day, and the city returns, whose highest numbers represent
only the average quarterly attendance, would not seem to require illustra-
tion. As, however, the comparison has been made in a grave public docu-
ment, let us examine practically its principles, and see how the returns to
the Superintendent from a public or city school, and from a common or
country school, having an exactly equal number of scholars and attendances
throughout the year, would exhibit each to the Legislature in the Superin-
tendent's report.

REPORT OF' COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 749

Suppose the year to begin with 200 scholars ; that the 200 old scholars
retire before the end of each quarter ; that they are succeeded during the
quarter by 200 new scholars, who had never before attended ; and that each
quarter thus begins with 200 scholars ; what 13 the comparison they would
present in the Superintendent's report ?

Let us first take the public or city school.

The year begins with scholars, . . -. <'' .- . 200
New entries during first quarter, .... 200

Retirements during first quarter, 200, leaving for second quarter, 200
New entries during second quarter, . . v : . .' ". . 200
Retirements during second quarter, 200, leaving for third quarter, 200
New entries during third quarter, . . . v : 200

Retirements during third quarter, 200, leaving for fourth quarter, 200
New entries during fourth quarter, . . . . 200

1600

This aggregate of 1600 being divided by 4, gives the quotient for the
quarterly average attendance of 400 ; which is the largest number returned
for the city school to the Superintendent of Common Schools.

Take, next, its twin-brother, the country school. What number would
it, under circumstances precisely similar, return to the Superintendent ?

The year begins with scholars, . . , ... 200

New scholars first quarter, . . . . ' . 200

" second quarter, ..... 200

" third quarter, . . . . . 200

" fourth quarter, . . . . < 200

Number returned, . . . . . . ' 1,000

Thus two schools, not at all distinguishable in their respective numbers
of scholars and attendances, would, in the Superintendent's report, exhibit
an apparent superiority of one school over another its exact equal in fact, in
the ratio of five to two.

Any comparison, therefore, between the quarterly attendances at the city
school and the attendances as we have explained them at the country school,
is evidently misplaced.

That between the average yearly attendances at the former and the
attendances at the latter is still more objectionable.

The attendances at the country school, of whatever duration, would
amount, as we have before seen, to 1,000, at which number they would be
returned to the Superintendent, and be reported by him.

The average yearly attendances calculated as prescribed by law for the pub-
lic school, would stand, in its return (judging from the comparative returns
of quarterly and yearly attendances to which the Secretary refers), at two hun-

750

APPENDIX.

dred and forty; or nearly, at which number they would be reported by the
Superintendent ; thus exhibiting an apparent superiority of one school over
another its exact equal in fact, in the ratio of more than four to one.

The truth is and justice to the city, when such comparisons are made,
requires, perhaps, it be spoken that the published returns to the Superin-
tendent give no definite idea of the amount of public education in the State,
being deficient in all particulars of the average quarterly or annual attend-
ance of the pupils. They announce the whole number of children returned
from each school district ; the number that attended the school within the
time it was open, and the length of the period it was open ; but they afford
no means of judging whether a majority, or any other definite proportion,
attended for more than a week, or a day. Nor, apparently, is the number
of children returned as having at some time been attending, to be depended
upon. Owing to a loose or an erroneous method of making up the returns,
the number of scholars attending the common schools has been frequently
exaggerated beyond the number actually residing within the districts. It
would be a matter for wonder if the attendance of every child residing
within the districts could be obtained, even for a day, within the periods
that the schools are open ; but a more extraordinary phenomenon was pre-
sented in the returns for a series of years, exhibiting, as they did, the attend-
ance of a much larger number of pupils between the ages of five and six-
teen years than there were children in existence between those ages in the
whole State. We copy from the schedule F of the last annual report of the
Superintendent of Common Schools, giving a " comparative statement of
the condition of the common schools from 1815 to 1840," the numbers of
children between said ages taught, and the number of children between said "
ages residing, in all the districts of the State, for the years 1824 to 1829,
both inclusive, and have added a column showing the excess of the scholars'
over the residents.

Year-

No. of children
taught in
the districts.

No. of children
residing in
the districts.

Excess of those
taught over those
in the districts.

1824
1825
1826
1327
1828
1829

402,940
425,586
431,fi01
441,856
468.205
480,041

383,500
595,586
411,256
419,216
449,113
468,257

10.440
30,000
2),345
22,640
10,092
11,784

Even from the returns for the year 1839, upon which the disparaging
comparisons of the Secretary are founded, there appears to be, in twenty-
seven counties of the State, an excess of more than 25,000 children between
the specified ages taught in their common schools, over the number of the
same classes of children residing within those counties, as ascertained by
the trustees of the school districts. The Superintendent of Common
Schools supposes, in his last report, that the returns from the schools, which
give the attendances, are more to be relied upon than the returns from the
trustees of the number of children within the districts : but this idea derives
no support from the census taken by the Marshal of the United States in the

REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 751

year after, when an increase of the number of the children had taken place.
The marshal, in 1840, finds an excess in those twenty-seven counties over the
returns of the trustees, in 1839, of less than 4,000, leaving yet an erroneous
excess in the returns of scholars attending of more than 21,000. Other
errors are detected in the returns to the Superintendent. The returns from
the Commissioners of Common Schools make the aggregate number of chil-
dren, in 1839, in all the districts of the State, excluding the city of New
York, to be 592,564 ; being more, by 14,560, than the whole number of chil-
dren between five and sixteen years residing in the same parts of the State
in 1840 ; which, by the marshal's returns, are ascertained
to be . . . . ;*., . . . 578,004

Difference, . . - . . 14,560
The returns of the schools, exclusive of those of New York,

show scholars attending, . ;; . . 549,457

The marshal's returns, exclusive of New York, . . 477,323

Difference, . . .- . . - 72,134

This difference the Superintendent endeavors to reduce to 42,211, mainly
by deducting 26,869 scholars returned by the marshal in another column, as
educated at the public charge. The latter number is, however, included in
the number of 477,323 above mentioned. In the reports both of the Super-
intendent and of the Secretary, it is so regarded when referring to New
York, to which 10,213 of the 26,869 belong ; but are not credited, in either
report, to the amount of education in the city.

It is unpleasant thus to dispel flattering illusions by which we, in com-
mon with the rest of the State, had been misled, until we were impelled to
investigate the subject ; but it is manifest that mistakes have existed in the
public documents relating to the common schools, which the interests and
perhaps the character of the State require should not hereafter occur.

Rejecting comparisons, then, drawn from returns to the Superintendent
from the city and the country, having no similitude in their particulars, and
widely differing in their accuracy, let us seek for better means to determine
the truth. These will be found in additional returns by the marshal, in the
census before referred to, which state the number of white persons residing
in the city and State, of and over the age of twenty years, who can neither
read nor write. The common school system and the public school system
have respectively been long enough in existence to test the efficacy of each
upon the persons who, under like circumstances, have actually come within
the operation of each, and passed to the age last specified. From the cen-
sus, we find that the whole white population of the State, excluding New
York City, of the age of twenty years and upward, is 990,792 ; and that the
like population in the city of New York is 163,920. Thus New York,
though possessing an aggregate population comparing with that of the rest
of the State, excluding New York, in the ratio of little more than one to
seven, has a relative white population, of and over the age of twenty years, *

752 APPENDIX.

of about one to six ; or, in other words, it has an excess of more than
17,400 white parsons, of the age of twenty years and upward, over its due
proportion, as compared with the aggregate population of the other coun-
ties. The number of whites of the age of twenty and upward, in the State,
who can neither read nor write, is 43,705 ; of whom there are, in New York,
7,778, and in the rest of the State, 35,927 ; showing an excess of 1,732 indi-
viduals only, in the city, out of a population of 312,932, over its due pro-
portion in the comparison with the counties, if all other circumstances were
exactly equal.

But it is to be recollected that, in every year, an immense laboring popu-
lation is arriving from abroad ; many of whom, wholly uninstructed, remain
in the city by reason of the labor to be obtained therein, and their capacity
for its performance, whilst the mass of the more fortunate class go to the
country. The wonder, therefore, is, that the excess before mentioned, of
1,732 persons, is so small. The alien population constituted, in 1835, when
the last State census was taken, somewhat more than one fifth of the whole
population of the city ; and that of the rest of the counties somewhat less
than one seventeenth of their whole population. The census taken by the
marshal, in 1840, does not furnish the alien population for the city or for the
State. If it has kept pace with the ratio for 1835, the number of white
aliens, of and over the age of twenty years, in the city, is about 32,500 ;
being more than fourfold the number of the whites of the same age who
cannot read or write ; while the number of aliens in the counties, of and
over the age of twenty years, is about 53,350 ; being less than one and a
half times the number of whites of the same age who cannot read or write.

A large portion of the alien population in the city is poor, or on the
verge of poverty, and may be presumed to comprise much ignorance,
brought up, as it has been, in countries where the blessings of education are
not diffused as in this. Some idea of the extent of the ignorance among
adults thus settled among us, may perhaps be gathered from the poverty
which appears to exist in their families. A report of the former Secretary
of State (Mr. Dix) shows that, in the year ending the 1st of December, 1838,
a year when labor for the poor was very difficult to obtain the whole
number of foreigners relieved or supported by public charity in the State
was 64,570 ; of whom 59,522 were in the city of New York, and only 5,048
in the other counties. He adds, " that, in the county of New York, foreign-
ers appear to constitute more than seventy-three per cent, of the whole num-
ber of persons relieved or supported ; while, in the other counties, they
constitute but little more than twenty per cent, of the whole number."

These explanations fully account ( for the entire number of white persons
in the city, over the age of twenty years, who cannot read nor write even
supposing that the Public School Society and the pay schools had hitherto
in due time educated every individual between four and sixteen years within
our boundaries, during that interval, or any part of it. Connected with
the returns of the marshal, illustrating this matter, they show, contrary to
the opinion which the Secretary has pronounced, that the Public School
Society has " accomplished the principal object of its organization the

EEPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 753

education of the great body of the children of the city." Notwithstanding
the very disproportionate influx of foreign population into this city, as com-
pared with the rest of the State, the struggles of the Society have kept
down ignorance to an extent which no system, less efficacious and liberal
than its own, could have effected ; and has enabled the city to make a posi-
tive comparison, waiving the consideration of its disadvantages, with many
of the counties of the State, some of which are embraced among the twenty-
seven which exhibit, in the Superintendent's report, so flourishing a state of
education within them.

Of the white persons, of and over the age of twenty years, who cannot
read or write, there is, rejecting fractions :

In the city of New York, . . . ' V 1 out of every 21

In the County of Montgomery, . .,; 1 <l 21

" Rensselaer, . . 1 " 21

" Wayne, .. . V 1 " 22

" Steuben, . . V 1 20

" Delaware, . ' * 1 " 20

" Columbia, .. ,,_.; . 1 " 20

" Essex, . . . ; 1 " 20

" Dutchess, * , . 1 " 15

" Franklin, . .1 " 14

" Fulton, . > - . .1 14

" Monroe, . , .' ;. 1 " 13

" Chemung, . . . .1 " 12

" Sullivan, . . , . 1 " 12

" Lewis, . . . .1 " 11

" Putnam, . . . 1 " 10

" Tioga, .... 1 " 9

" Herkimer, . . . 1 " 8

" Clinton, . . ... 1 " 5

We have thus sufficiently disposed of the charge that " a fearfully large
portion of the indigent children are not reached, or in any way benefited,"
by the system of education that now prevails in the city. The want of sup-
port for the charge will, however, become still more apparent from the com-
parisons that follow.

The number of paupers, " the indigent " emphatically, in the State, in
1840, as returned by the Secretary of State to the Legislature, is 56,561. Of
this number, 27,553 were in New York, and the residue 29,008 in the
counties. Looking to the proportion which the population, of twenty years
of age and upward, in the city and in the counties respectively, bears to the
aggregate population of each, the paupers of the counties would comprise
13,579, of and over the age of twenty years, and the paupers of the city
would comprise 14,432 of and over that age ; the larger number in the city
arising from the fact before mentioned, of its having more than 17,400 per-
sons, of twenty years and upward, beyond its proportion, as compared with

754: APPENDIX.

the aggregate population of the counties. The paupers, then, of the city,
of and over the age of twenty years, bear the proportion to its inhabitants
of like age who cannot read or write, of 14,432 to 7,778 ; making the ratio
of the paupers to the untaught nearly two to one, and showing that almost
one half of the very indigent (throwing altogether out of view the accession
of untaught persons from abroad) have been " reached or benefited " by the
public schools; whilst, in the counties, the proportions would be 13,579
paupers to 35,927 untaught ; showing that a number of persons equalling all
the paupers, besides about one and two thirds their number, from among
those in better circumstances, had not been " reached or benefited " by the
common schools. In other words, the untaught in the city would be, in
comparison with its poor, as little more than one to two ; while, in the
counties, the untaught, in comparison of their poor, would be more than
five to two ; thus making a difference in favor of the city, as contrasted with
the counties, upon a comparison of their poor and of their untaught respec-
tively, in the ratio of about five to one.

There is no doubt that a commendable anxiety to educate the poor has
fearfully exaggerated the number of those who, in this city, obtain no in-
struction. We had, in some degree, participated of this delusion. It is true
that idle children are found in various parts of the city, whose own per-
verseness, or whose unfeeling parents, prevent them, at times, from coming
to school ; but although they may not attend this month, they find their
way to school the next ; and, the mode of tuition in all the schools being
uniform, thus pick up, from month to month, the elements ot learning. An
illustration of this is derived from the fact that, during the last year, more
than 21,000 children retired, from time to time, from the public schools,
their vacant places being refilled by others. In no other way than we have
suggested can the results we have presented be accounted for. If no en-
treaties avail in attracting idle children to school, the poverty of their
parents, or their own vicious course, ensures their destiny to the Poor-House
or the House of Refuge, whose wholesome discipline imposes the necessity
of attending to their books. As fast as the foreign population increases,
their children are made the objects of our liberal system. Thus we believe
that the portion of the young who, in our city, grow up without education
altogether, is very insignificant indeed.

In presenting the statistics contained in this report, some errors may pos-
sibly have occurred, drawn, as the materials have in part been, from various
columns of the marshal's census and the Superintendent's report, and under-
going, as they necessarily have, after-processes of calculation. We have
intended them and believe them to be wholly free from error, and therefore
invite all just criticism. If any mistake has accidentally crept in, sure we
are that it is not of a character or amount that can affect substantially the
general tenor of our statements and conclusions. In making the estimates,
we have used the marshal's returns as printed by order of our State Legisla-
ture, and have pursued the Superintendent's method of ascertaining there-
from the number of children between the ages of five and sixteen years.

Having thus examined the objections which have been advanced against

EEPOET OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 755

the public school system, it may be proper to look into the bill reported to
the Senate, proposing a substitute. This bill, we understand, received the
approbation of the remonstrants (alluded to by the Secretary of State), who
sent numerous committees from this city to the Legislature to urge its adop-
tion ; and the effort for its passage will probably be renewed at the next ses-
sion. It may be assumed to have been prepared under the direction of the
memorialists ; nothing being more common than to introduce a bill into the
Legislature' framed by the applicants, so that all their propositions may have
a fair chance of due legislative discussion and inquiry. We shall therefore
regard it as the bill of the remonstrants, and speak of its provisions accord-
ingly. Never, probably, in the history of legislation, were the avowed
objects of a bill more at variance with its actual tendency than this.

The remonstrants profess, in substance, a desire that the people shall
have a more direct control and administration of the public school system
in this city ; and for this purpose they commence by taking from the Com-
mon Council the immediate and comparatively numerous representatives of
the people, and the guardians of their local interests and concerns, all con-
nection with, or control over, the schools whatsoever. In place of the Cor-
poration and the Commissioners of School Money chosen by them, the bill
proposes to place the whole government of the system under seventeen com-
missioners of common schools, one to be elected by the qualified voters of
each ward, at the charter election ; thus affording the desirable guarantee
for a pure and efficacious administration of the system, by connecting its
destinies with the political contests of the wards, with the cabals, intrigues,
and bargainings of committees, appointed, not at primary meetings of the
people, but at partial and interested meetings of partisans, and with the
fierce strife of party animosity. In a spirit of hostility to close corporations,
and of any abatement of the people's rights, the Commissioners of Common
Schools are erected, immediately upon their election, into a close corpora-
tion, for their terra of service ; filling vacancies, whenever they occur in
their body, by the votes of the residue ; so that, by possibility, it might
happen to become a board not one of the members of which had received
the popular suffrage ; and in no case would the inhabitants of the ward in
which the vacancy occurred have any voice, directly or indirectly, in the
choice of its new commissioner. -Zealous, as the title of the bill purports,
" to extend the benefits of common school education in the city of New
York," it banishes from the schools all the children, forming so numerous
and interesting a class in the primary departments, between the ages of four
and five years, by taking away from them all the benefits now enjoyed by
them from the school moneys ; and it directs the appointment, by the Board
of Commissioners, of a superintendent and clerk (offices which would inevi-
tably become political rewards), who are to have the first lien on the school
moneys, for the payment of their annual salaries, amounting to three thou-
sand dollars : a sum equivalent to the average tuition, in the public schools,
of one thousand scholars, including the average expenses of teachers, school-
books, slates, pencils, writing-books and pens, maps, school library, furni-
ture, and room hire. Deprecating grants of power to any private corpora-

756 APPENDIX.

tion to disburse the public moneys, as wrong in principle and an invasion
of popular rights, it contains provisions, compulsory on the commissioners
and the public, to admit any number of persons who may choose to asso-
ciate for the purpose, and such others only as they in their pleasure may
choose to adopt as their associates, to the privileges of a district school, and
to a participation and expenditure of the school moneys ; upon the condi-
tions that the associates will stipulate for the continuance of their school
for at least one year ; will make it appear that their school will promote the
interests of education, and will not interfere with any school already estab-
lished ; and that the persons applying are able to maintain a respectable
school for the instruction of children in the branches usually pursued in
common schools. Ardent to impart the benefits of education to all, it pre-
scribes no regulation under which all must be admitted, on equal terms, to
the contemplated schools. Sensitive to the just rights of the taxpayers in
the city, whose contributions to the cause of education are comparatively
nearly threefold those of the taxpayers, for the same object, in the counties,
the proposed system embraces enactments whose operation would probably
drive their children from the schools, and, at best, would leave them but the
gleanings, after the harvest had been reaped by those who pay no tax at all.
Paying homage to the merits of the schools of the Public School Society, it
adopts them as part of the system, but takes from them the means of sus-
taining their present character and usefulness, and divests them of two of
their noblest distinctions that which forbids the inquiry whether the
parent can or cannot pay for the education of his child ; and that which,
with a just regard to the principles regulating our political institutions,
mingles the children of all, without reference to adventitious circumstances
of fortune, in a competition for eminence : resembling the struggle in which
they are destined to engage, upon terms of like equality, in their future
character of men of the nation. Solicitous for the protection of religion,
whilst it erects establishments that may be devoted to sectarian objects, it
also fashions schools in which infidelity may be taught at the public ex-
pense. Professing to pay respect to the feelings inseparable from a due
appreciation of the rights of freemen, it humbles the citizen to the proof
of pecuniary destitution before he can obtain a gratuitous education for his
child, and demands that the name of the latter be then enrolled as the
recipient of public relief, on documents open to the inspection of every
inquirer ; thus carrying down the record of the receipt of public charity as
the accompaniment for life of the youth who, under the existing system,
obtains a good education as a right, without disclosing the circumstances
of the parent to any. Many of our mechanics, and other most useful popu-
lation, whose struggles enable them to subsist their families, can ill afford
the cost of the education of their children ; but the just sensibilities be-
longing to freemen would prompt the indignant refusal of any benefit to
their offspring, to be obtained only upon such degrading conditions.

Other objections, not here necessary to enumerate, might be advanced
against the project in question, or any other at all resembling it. The fact
that a bill containing clauses so odious might possibly have received legisla-

REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF SCHOOL MONEYS. 757

tive sanction, without being duly considered by the community on whom its
injuries would most immediately fall, admonishes the necessity, before the
present system of education for the city shall be changed, of a reference to
that community of any proposed substitute, in order that they may pass
upon it distinctly by the ballot-box. Of the vast benefits derived from the
practical operation of the public schools in this city, there are not, that we
are aware, any differences of opinion among those who have visited them
and impartially examined into their effect. Advantages of such magnitude,
securing, as they do, results of incalculable consequence to the intelligence
and morals of the city, should not be hazarded for the sake of untried or
exploded systems, that, after inflicting their evils, will cause us to deplore
the sacrifice of a healthful state, which, if to be regained at all, will require
many years for its restoration. Sensible of their duty to the public, the
commissioners have not felt at liberty to avoid that faithful exposition of
their views which the occasion demands ; and they pray the Corporation of
the city, and the Superintendent of Common Schools, and, through them,
the Legislature of the State, to give such a cautious and deliberate consid-
eration of the whole subject as the immense interests involved, and any con-
victions herein expressed, may respectively appear to deserve.

SAMUEL GILFORD, JR., Chairman.
GEORGE W. STRONG, Secretary.

INDEX.

Acts Relating to Schools, 5, 12, 24, 25, 26,

36, 48, 74, 101, 120, 137, 521, 573, 583.

Act for Relief of Bethel Baptist Church, 49,

63.
Address

of the P. S. Society to the Public, 6.

of De Witt Clinton, 14.

to Parents and Guardians, 36.

by Rev. J. N. Maffit, 43.

Rev. Thaddeus Osgood, 43.

of the P. S. Society to the Public, 110.

Reasons of the P. S. Society, &c., 127.

of Roman Catholics to Public, 188,

189, 331.

Adelphi Society, Philadelphia, 22.
Administration of the Society, 604.
African Free School, 48, 87, 92, 93, 94,
95, 97, 131, 135, 156, 157, 165, 171,
665-679.

Agent and Visitor, 157, 615.
Aimwell School, Philadelphia, 22.
Albany Lancasterian School, 100.
American Museum, 83.
Americus, Review of Hon. J. C. Spencer,

482-488.

Analysis of Faith, 307.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 438.
Arcularius, Henry, 145.
Arrowsmith, Edward, 61.
Assembly, House of

Report of Committee on Colleges,
Academies, and Schools, 70.

Proceedings on School Law, 352, 497,

521.

Assistant Teachers, see Teachers.
Association, Protestant, 302.

of Women Friends, 2, 653.
Augustine, St., 438.
Authority of the King, 468.

of the Pope, 247, 303, 305, 468.

15.

Bangs, D.D., Rev. Nathan, 201, 273, 313.
Baptist Tabernacle Church, 43, 69.
Barnes, Erastus, 140.

Barry, Commodore, 302.

Basileopolis, Bishop of, 338.

Beadle, M.D., Edward L., 581.

Beekman, Hon. J. W., 597.

Beggars, 620.

Bell, Dr., 20.

Bellevue Hospital School, see Public School

No.Q.

Benedict, Hon. Erastus C., 597.
Bethel Baptist Church, 44, 47, 48-75, 78,

100, 124, 726.

Bethune, Mrs. Joanna, 108, 658.
Betting, 211, 257, 300.
Bible, Douay, 236, 237, 246, 258.

Protestant, 213, 246, 250, 289, 467.

Tyndal's, 467.

Coverdale's, 467.

Bishop's, 467.

James L, 467.

in Schools, 191, 192, 236, 246, 257,

275, 388, 635-644.
Bloomingdale School, 105, 106.
Board of Education, 521, 526, 528, 534.

Union of Society with, 576-599.

and Powers of Public School Society,

535-575.

Bolton, Thomas, 101, 381, 721.
Bond, Rev. Thomas E., 201, 249, 252, 283,

293, 294, 313.
Bonnet, Peter, 70.

Books, School-, Expurgation of, 160-163,
208, 213, 237, 263, 317, 324-349.

against Catholics, 160-163, 209, 212,
216, 245, 261, 315, 321, 386, 408,
464, 733.
Bossuet, 438.

Boston Schools, 114, 118, 152, 153.
Bosworth, Hon. Joseph L., 560-572.
Bourne, Wm. Oland, 714.
Bradish, Lieut.-Gov. Luther, 426.
British and Foreign School Society, 31,

91, 100.

British Critic, 259, 293, 294, 297.
Brownlee, D.D., Rev. W. C., 241.
Brush, Nehemiah, 140, 142.
Bryant, William Cullen, 709.
Bryson, David, 145.
Buckingham, Hon. James S., 70-S.

760

INDEX.

Bull of the Pope, 306.
Burlington, N. J., School at, 22.
Buyce, John, 62, 63.

Calvin, 287.

Campbell, Archibald, 102.

Cardinal Pazmann, 492.

Carrigan, Andrew, 195.

Carroll of Carrollton, Charles, 287, 305.

Carroll Hall, 426, 479.

Gary, Jeremiah E., 581.

Catechism, 44, 138.

Roman, 306.

of Council of Trent, 306.
Catholic Faith, Exposition of, 306.

Church Infallible, 265, 273, 307.

Bible, 236.

Central Executive Committee, 350.

School Party, 479-482.

School Ticket, 481.

Board, Dublin, 297.

Excommunication, see Excommunica-
tion,
Census, 87, 111, 121, 122, 503, 505, 507,

616.
See also, Maclay's Report, New York

Evangelist, and Appendix C.
Centre Street, Opening, 171.
Chamberlain, William, 196, 323.
Charity Schools, 2, 86, 121.
Chase, Rev. Johnson, 50, 58, 59, 61, 74.
Chatfield, Hon. Levi S. 497.
Cheshire Cheese, 443.
Children untaught, see Census.
Cholera Hospitals, Schools for, 155.
Church and State, 728, 730, 746.
Churches

Baptist, 69, 239.

Baptist Tabernacle, 43, 69.

Bethel Baptist Church, 44,47, 48-75,
83, 124, 726.

Canal Street Presbyterian, 659.

Congregational, 64.

Dutch Reformed, 64, 70, 138, 239.

Episcopal, 239, 301.

Grace, 64.

Methodist Episcopal, 69, 125, 141-
148, 198, 239, 249, 252, 253, 274.

Presbyterian, 70, 276.

Roman Catholic, 97, 124, 160, 187,
239, 253, 324.

Society of Friends, 2, 172, 174. 207,
239.

Trinity, 25, 41, 104.
Church Schools, 64-67, 69-70, 72, 89, 97,

124-148.
Civil Purposes of School Money, see School

Fund not Sectarian.
Classical Schools, 116.
Close Corporation, 86, 151, 248, 4106, 432,

742.

Colored Schools, see African Free School.
Colquhoun on Poor of London, 17.
Columbia College, 106, 121, 245.
Commissioners of School Money, 74, 96,

130, 185, 186.
report of, 734.

Elected from the Society, 586.
Committees

of Common Council on Baptist

Church, 67.

of Assembly on Colleges, Academies,
and Schools, on Bethel Church, 70,
89, 182.
on Laws, of Common Council, 96. 98,

381.

do., Report of (Appendix), 715.
on Arts, Sciences, and Schools, 130,
141, 147.
report, 722.

on Laws, Board of Assistants, 133.
Arts and Sciences, Board of Alder-
men, 147.

to visit Boston Schools, 152.
to Confer with Bishop Dubois, 162.
on Reorganization of System, 156.
on Schools for Germans, 168, 176.
on Teachers and Monitors, 169.
Special, Board, of Aldermen, 316.
Catholic Central, on Schools, 350.
of Assembly, on Colleges, Academies,

and Schools, 352, 497.
Report of, 501.

on Literature (Senate), 353, 373, 402.
of Transfer, Report, 587.
Common Schools? What is meant by, 134.
Common Council, and Corporation, 11, 13,
21, 25, 30, 46, 51, 56, 57, 64, 67, 74,
75, 81-85, 89, 96, 122, 12o, 154, 171,
179, 183, 202.
Compromise, no, 246, 467.
Confession, Westminster, 439.
Congregational Church, 64.
Connecticut School Fund, 89.

Law of, 620.

Constitution of New York State on Reli-
gion, 139, 144, 363, 723, 728, 730, 746.
Cook, Richard, 70.
Cooper, Peter, see Personal Index.
Corlear's Hook, 155.
Corporal Punishment, 78, 532, 629.
Corporation of New York, see Common

Council.

Council of Trent, 306.
Court of Errors, 426.
Cowdrey, Samuel, see Personal Index.
Crushing Catholic Conscience, 250, 812.

Danaher, T. L., 351.

Deaf and Dumb, Institution for, 150.

INDEX.

761

Declaration of Independence, 247, 303.

Depository, 611.

Death of Benjamin D. Perkins, 24.

John Murray, Jr., 41.

De Witt Clinton, 109.

Lloyd D. Windsor, 167.

Joseph Lancaster, 172.

Robert C, Cornell, 532.

Lindley Murray, 573.
Democratic Party and Schools, 478, 496.
Dibblee, Tyler, 131, 132, 145, 148.
Dickinson, Senator A. B., 501.
Dillon, Gregory, 188, 195, 350.
Dix, Gen. John A., 497.
Dissenters, 214, 289.
Dissolution of the Manumission Society
679.

of the Public School Society, 595.
District and New York -City Systems Com-
pared, see Maclay's Report, New York
Evangelist and Appendix C.
Dominicans, 301.
Donations to the Society, 8, 10, 11, 13,

14, 23, 25, 29, 36, 73, 657.
Doyle, Rev. Dr., Bishop of Kildare, 303.
Drake, Jacob, 60.
Dublin Review, 297, 469.
Dublin Catholic Board, 297.
Dubois, Bishop, 160-163, 324.
Duffy, Peter, 195.

Dutch Reformed Church, 64, 70, 138.
Duty of the State, 88, 113, 240, 242, 354,
724, 732, 733, 745.

Economical School, 48, 87.
Economv, 605.
Edict of Nantes, 214.
Edinburgh High School, 114.

Review, 16, 18.

Education of the Poor,3, 6, 10, 15, 17, 55,
110, 154, 227, 255, 311, 312, 333, 601,

602, 754, see Vagrancy and Census.
Elizabeth, Queen, 292.
England, 214, 303.

Catholics of, 292.
Engs, Philip W., 61.
Evangelist, New York, 606-516.
Evening Schools, 613, 682, 690.
Exchanges, Scientific, 530.
Excommunication, Roman Catholic, 485,
490-495.

See also Tristram Shcndy.
Expurgation of School Books, see Books.

False Issue, 204, 254.
Farden, Thomas, 63.

Faith, Rule of, 290, 307.

Analysis of, 307.

Catholic, 307.

Farm School, Manual Labor, 175.
Fell, M.D., J. Weldon, 597.
Female Association, 2, 27, 33, 40, 49, 87,

93, 95, 129, 532, 653-657, 681.
Field, Charles D., 581.
Fire Department, 60.
Fitzsimmons, Thomas, 305.
Francis, St., 438.
Freeman's Journal, 187, 202, 326, 831,

479.

Free and Pay Systems, see Pay System,
Freemasons, 31.
Free School Society, Organized, 2. .

Memorial to Legislature, 3.

Act of Incorporation, 4.

First Board of Trustees, 6.

Address to the Public, 6.

Funds Raised, 8.

School Opened, 9.

Aid from the" Legislature, 11, 12, 20.
" " Corporation, 1 1, 13, 20.

Name altered, 12.

of Philadelphia, 22.

Law of 1812, 26.

Memorial to Legislature, 33.

Name altered to P. S. Society, 98.
French Language in Schools, 169.

Galileo, 441.

Gaston, Judge, Extract from, 304.

German Schools, 168, 176.

Girard, Stephen, 283, 303.

Glossarium, Archaeologicum (Spelman),

492.

Goff, A. W., Music in Schools, 634.
Gordon, Lord George, 302, 313.
Grace Church, 64.

Graham, David, 195, 253, 323, 326, 345.
Greenwich Asylum, 129, 138.