Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1843-09-01
STATE SCHOOL FUND.

and to Justify this expenditure a valid and
sufficient reason should be apparent. The
people should know for what cause they are
taxed. that they may decide on the proprieiy
or necessity Of the tax. Ostensibly this
fund is to be raised to educate future gem
erations 1t will in truth be, il continued,
a plaything in the hands Of designing poll
ticians; and it may be used as a great cor
ruption fund 10 buy up all, that IS yendlble
in political shambles, and If this use is not
made OF it, il will be owing more TO the IN
tegrity OF our citizens, than 10 any guards,
which il is in the power Of the Law to throw
around it. During the last session Of the
legislature. Mr.. DalIingham Of the Senate,
while debating a bill drawn, TO give away
for particular object, more than S2OO, OOO
Of the fund, openly declared in substance,
his belief, that not dollar Of the fund would
ever reach the object contemplated in the
act, that it would all be dissipated or divert
ed, and vet added he, neither OF the political
parties dare arrest the fund, for fear Of the
effect on his party: that is, neither Of the
parties had the moral courage TO do right
II is hoped, that the Hon. Senator bad no
authority TO confess for any, but himself, or
at most for himself and party This was
frank admission, and that the senator's views
in regard TO the ultimate event Of the fund
were not Just, there can be no doubt; and
still for the want of courage in the Repre-
seniatyes Of the people, they are still to be
taxed to swell a fund, the proiessed object
of which is never to be accomplished. And
how is this to be done By talking Of edu
eating posterity by saying one thing and
meaning another by talking Of the poor
children, as though the poor children we're
designed to be benefited by this fund.- which
is never expected to reach posterityl Why
the very money TO swell this fund, is taken
from the children, to be cast, not to the
dogs, but upon the stream Of time, to be
sunk, or disspated before it ever reach its
proposed destination. IN truth the project,
Of benefiting the cause Of education by the
fund, counteracts its own pretensions.
1t is, and always will be true, that the
surest guarantee for the future generations,
is to educate the present, TO the greatest
practicable extent; but this fund takes the
money froIn the object, and places it where
it will probably never benefit the children of
any generation. Apply it to the cause Of
education now, it will be advantageously
and safely invested. The recreations, con-
sequent upon intellectual aud moral culture,
are as certainly the result of universal law
Of the human mind, as reproduction is the
result Of animal and vegetable organization,
and far more prolific in the former, than in
the latter case. "The herb yielding seed
after its kind" continues the species, but in
this case and that Of the animals, the ratio
Of reproduction is limited by law, which
il cannot pass while the recreations Of the
mind are bounded only by the number of
minds coming in contest with mind In
the former case the increase is not only
limited but slowly progressive; in the latter
the recreatIons Of the mind are generated
with the quickness Of thought, throughout
the whole range Of mind coming in contact
with mind. KepIer discovered the great
law OF motion, that the planets describe
equal areas in equal times. Till then this
truth was unknown, and the result was the
cause Of solitary and pro,racted study; but
no sooner was this ssu:A promulgated, than
every astronomer appropriated it as a part
Of his intellectual wealth, and the universe
of men was raised TO a new elevation, to
contemplate, throughout a more extended
horizon the works of the great Creator
This is the result Of the recreative power Of
thought, and such it will ever be in all the
discoveries in science and the arts, and to
some extent in morals.
But what is there in the accumulation of
funds or wealth to produce intellectual adj
vancement, or even to recreate or perpetu-
ate itselfl Money in itself is inert as the
ore in the mine, whence it was extracted
IL is intellect alone, which clothes it with
power and influence. The value Of money
is in its use, as a medium of commerce. 1t
will furnish facilities for human culture but
why accumulate it to be buried ia a nap
kin, or in the earth with the talent Of the
slothiul serVantl
The funds collected as the fruits Of pub
lie and private munihcence to found Dart
mouth College, were not suffered to lie
useless for century, till the generation of
contributors had all passed off the stage
they were Immediately applied for the ben
eft Of the then, and all future generations
Let us now contemplate the result. That
institution is the centre of illumination to
an unknown extent diffusing its genial inhu-
ence to the EXTREMIST fibres Of society,"
Should now those rays of intellectual and
moral influence be replaced by gloomy
mental and moral darkness, with these con-
comitants, wickedness, and vice, and yo-
lence, we should soon appreciate the value
flight, by transition into midnight moral
darkness. What amount Of the precious
metal could compensate for the calamity of
such transition. Suppose the fund-mana,
which now fills the otherwise empty heads
of some of our pseudo philauthropists, had
been in the days Of the elder Wheelock, and
the money, which established that institu-
Aso.. LII Lon., c,nLnI anI InnroI =. IL