SECOND SPEECH ON AID TO THE COLLEGES.

Ar an early period of the session of 1849, a memorial similar to that of last year was presented to the legislature of the commonwealth, praying that, when the school fund had reached the limit of one million of dollars, prescribed by law, another fund of one half a million should be allowed to accumulate for the benefit of the colleges. The afternoon of the seventh of February was appointed by the joint committee on education for a public hearing, in the hall of the House of Representatives, of the friends of the colleges, in support of the memorial. President Hopkins appeared on behalf of Williams College, President Hitchcock on behalf of Amherst College, and President Sparks and Mr Everett on behalf of Harvard College, with other gentlemen, officers or friends of the institutions respectively.

The memorial having been read by J. Lothrop Motley, Esq., a member of the committee, Mr Everett spoke substantially as follows:

MR CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:

I appear before you, at the request of the corporation of Harvard College, to unite with other friends of that institution, with the learned representatives of the other colleges, and with the friends generally of collegiate education in the 'commonwealth, in support of the memorial which has just been read by Mr Motley; a memorial presented to the two Houses at the commencement of the session, and by them referred to the joint committee on education. You may be surprised, sir, that, having been compelled to retire from the

honorable relation in which I stood but lately to the university at Cambridge, I yet appear before you as her representative on this occasion. I do so, in one point of view, with reluctance, leaving, as I well might, the advocacy of her cause and the care of her interest in the present measure to the distinguished gentleman (Mr Sparks) who has been called to take my place. I feel that I might do so with great advantage to the institution. The talents, the literary attainments, and the character of that gentleman, are too well known to the public, by the numerous first-rate works with which he has enriched our literature, to make it necessary for me to say, that I am fully aware how well my appearance on this occasion might be dispensed with.

But, Mr Chairman, if I perform a work of supererogation, it is also a work of love. I have cheerfully complied with the request of the friends of Harvard College, that I would appear for her on this occasion, because my heart is in her cause. Having been favored, together with other friends of the colleges, with a hearing before the joint committee on education last year, there seemed no impropriety, rather a fitness, in my appearing for the same purpose before this honorable body at the present session; and I doubt not, Mr Chairman, you will pardon the well-meant officiousness of a retiring servant. You have heard of the veteran tallow-chandler, who, in the decline of his years, quitted the firm and retired to a farm in the country. He soon found his time to hang heavily on his hands, and came back to request his old associate to receive him again into partnership; or, if this would not do, at least to let him come and work with them on "melting days." Mr Chairman, I hope that this will prove such a day for the colleges; that, in contrast with the wintry scene around, your hearts and those of the legislature will be "open as day for melting charity;" though I hope to show you, before I have done, that it is not solely nor mainly as suppliants for charity that we appear in your presence. But I have not come, sir, to deal in phrases or arts of rhetoric. I come to treat a business subject, before business men, in a practical way; and I must ask your indulgence should I

acquit myself in a less satisfactory manner than I could wish; the general state of my health being indifferent, and my condition this afternoon quite adverse to any effort of mind or of body.

Having alluded to the hearing kindly granted us last year by the joint committee on education, I beg to be allowed in the outset, on behalf of the colleges, to make our cordial acknowledgments to that committee for their report in favor of granting the prayer of our memorial. That report, sir, let me say without compliment, is a most able performance. It is conceived in the spirit of the truest statesmanship. The facts bearing on the subject are collected in it with accuracy and diligence. As an argument, it is of great force and ingenuity. It presents our cause in the fairest and most favorable light; and we cannot doubt that it was owing to want of time for a thorough discussion of the subject, in all its bearings, that it failed to carry conviction to the minds of the members of the legislature.

What is the prayer of the colleges? It is, in a word, that the legislature would allow the revenue from the public lands - after the limit of one million of dollars assigned by law to the school fund has been reached to accumulate for the formation of another fund, one half as large as the school fund, to be appropriated in some fixed proportion for the benefit of the colleges.

This is our request; and I do not think it necessary to dwell at all on what might seem a preliminary question, viz., the policy of appropriating a portion of the moneys arising from the sales of the public lands to educational purposes of some kind or other. It seems to be allowed, upon all hands, that this is their proper destination, a part of the settled policy of the commonwealth. Such appropriations seem, in fact, almost a part of the common law of the land. They have been made by the legislatures of the old states, and large reservations of the land in the new states have been made by Congress for the purpose of education. I have never heard a murmur of disapprobation at the appropriations made from this source in this state for the school fund; and

I think the authors of the minority report of last year-a paper of which I wish to speak with all becoming respect, although I greatly differ alike from its train of reasoning and statement of facts - do not suggest any other than an educational destination for these funds.

Passing that topic, therefore, as one not needing argument, I will say that the bare statement of the real object of our petition is a sufficient answer to an objection which met us in limine last year, viz., that we asked the legislature to divert the school fund to the colleges. Not only was this statement of the object of the memorialists made in several of the public papers, but the minority of the committee use the following language: "To make, therefore, liberal appropriations to the colleges to the neglect of the common schools, richly to endow the former at the expense of the latter, the very thing which the petitioners ask, — is not consistent, we believe, with a sincere desire to promote the true interests of collegiate education."

We have

We do not

Now, with all respect to the minority of the committee, the colleges must claim to know the object and nature of their own petition, and their motives in presenting it. no such wish or purpose as those ascribed to us. desire to build up the colleges to the neglect of the schools; to endow the former at the expense of the schools; nor to devote one dollar of the school fund to any other purpose. But I suppose it need not be argued that all the money in the state does not belong to the common school fund. That fund has a limit, a limit prescribed by law. The legislature, in its wisdom, fixed its amount at one million of dollars. This limit was not prompted nor advised by the colleges. We were not consulted, sir, on the subject; and sure I am, if we had been, no friend of the colleges with whose views I am acquainted has ever shown a wish to stint the school fund. The general court of the commonwealth, in its wisdom, and as I think in the exercise of a sound discretion, (and on that topic, if I have time before getting through, I may trouble the committee with a remark or two,) — established one million of dollars as the limit of the fund; and all

that we ask is, that, when that fund shall have reached the original legislative limit, from the same sources of revenue another fund, half as large, may be permitted to accrue, for the benefit of the colleges; but not a dollar before. Well, now, sir, to say that we ask for the diversion of the school fund to the colleges, is merely to attempt to create a prejudice against us by an incorrect and invidious use of terms. It would be just as proper for the memorialists to say to those who oppose this grant, that they are trying to divert to the schools a fund that belongs to the colleges. It belongs to neither, except so far as it has been appropriated. It is not school fund beyond this, nor college fund, but state fund. A portion of it has been appropriated by the legislature to the schools; and that portion, and no more, is school fund. We ask that another portion may be appropriated to the colleges; and we submit that it is not quite fair to attempt to raise a prejudice against us, by saying that we seek to endow them richly at the expense of the schools.

But it will be said, We allow the right of the legislature to give this fund to the colleges; we will not call it a diversion of the school fund; but we maintain that the schools want more than they now have, and that it would be better policy to increase the school fund than to create a college fund. The schools (this is the argument) are not what they ought to be; the school-houses are, many of them, ill contrived, ill built, and comfortless; the teachers not as well qualified as they should be; apparatus and libraries greatly deficient. It is not true that the provision made for our common schools is adequate; and till it is made so, it is wrong to appropriate to any other purpose what might be, and therefore ought to be, given to the schools. Till better school-houses are erected in the ill-provided districts; till normal schools are multiplied to such a degree as to furnish an ample supply of well-qualified teachers; and until libraries and apparatus are provided for all the schools in the commonwealth, it cannot be said that the state has done enough for the schools, and therefore it is too soon to call upon her to do any thing for the colleges. I wish to state this objection as strongly as I can against