Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1845-10-16
GOVERNORS MESSAGE,
Fsllow Citizens oftte Senate and House of Represe
titaU tnfipes.


mitted to us; and come together for the purpose
of its execution. If we should discharge in the best
manner, the duties it involves, we shall begin and
end every thing, with a recognition of our depend
ence upon Him "from whom all good counsels and
all just works proceed" while His claims upon our
fidelity to HIMSELF will become an ever-present in
centive to fidelity in the service of the people we
represent
: The year which is drawing toward close has
been one of prosperity to our people. Though
threatened drouth has repeatedly filed them with
- apprehension, and ALARM they have finally been
permitted to reap an abundant harves,-thus happi
ly finding increased motives to gratitude, in deliver
ances from impending danger, rendered the more
impressive by strong contrast with less favored por
tons of the country,
A great trust has been committed to us, as the
constituted guardians of the interests of this people,
If in the struggles connected with the election which
has sent us here we have suffered unworthy passions
to gain an ascendency, they too often do in po-
lcal contests, we cannot come here and enter upon
thesober work of surveying our responsibilities with
out dismissing them ALL taking each other by the
hand as fellow citizens and brethren, and striving
together for the faith of fathers and the further
ance of the great ends for which they established
the government we have been appointed to admins
ter. How shall we best accomplish these ends,
within the brief space of our annual session? is a
question to which you will allow me briefly to invite
your attention
The institution of civil government is designed to
become an actively benlfcent agency. The re-
strant of force is far from being its only object
Excepting in governments purely arbitrary, law de-
rives its energy from force extraneous to Itself
the force of deep and abiding sentiment of venera-
ton for lava love of order-habitua self restraint
elevation and purity of moral feeling, and inte-
gence to guide it wisely in the complicated affairs
Ofhunan life. ~ .l ..l ..
Civil government, them accomplishes its object,
not when it Furnishes crime, but when it prevents its
commssion-not by providing jails and penitentia-
Ties, but Gy preventing the necessity of their exist
ence; by training the people, far law can prop
erly nerpose its power, to intelligence and the love
of virtue The fathers of cur State felt this when,
with Characteristic wisdom, they declared in the
constitution, that "laws for the encouragement of
virtue and the prevention of vice and immortality
ought to be constantly kept in force, and duly exc
cuted; and a competent number Of schools ought to
be maintained In each town, for the convenient in
sructlon OF youth, and one or more grammar schools
be incorporated and properly supported in each coun-
ty in the State" Thus were the encouragement of
virtue, the suppression of vice, and the maintenance
of schools, deemed vital for the welfare of the
State as to demand for them a special provision in
its organic law
the General Assembly was devoted to the subject Of
education, that deem it necessary to do little more
now than to refer you, as most respectfully d. to
that message for my views in regard to it.
- The present has been truly denominated an age
of progress. The human mind is vigorously siezing
and carrying out to practical results the momenous
truths which respect the relations of men to each
other, and the appropriate means of accomplishing
the purposes of human society and government At
the foundation of this vast movement lies the great
work of Education-the work of developing and Civ
ing right direction to mental and moral power
And if human government is to be regarded as an
institution designed to perfect the purposes of soc
ety. and improve the condition of man upon EARTH it
needs no labored argument to show that education,
thus Defined is among the highest duties of those
entrusted with its administration.
Nor should it be forgotten that there are rights
co-reative to this duty. Every child in the State
has right to be educated-a right as essentially re-
cproca to the claim of the State to allegiance as is
the right to protection. The question whether the
children of State shall be educated, is no more q
question Of mere expedlency than is the question
whether the people have a right to protection from
foreign aggression and domestic violence. Indeed,
protection from the effects of ignorance and vice is,
ITSELF protection in the highest sense from all the
dangers which can arise within the limits of
State Would we have obedience to law? let the
children be learned in the common school, as well
at the domestic fre-side the duty of self control
and of reverence for the law of eternal rectitude
written in the word of God while the development,
In just and harmonious proportions, of their whole
mind, shall give them, at once conscious sense of
the worth of mind, and an intelligent conviction of
the great purposes it is fitted to accomplish.
All the children in Vermont--especially the chill
dren of the poorstand in the attitude of just claim
ants, in respect to education upon the fostering
bounty and guardian care of the State. And what
has Vermont done to satisfy this claim? We have,
indeed, declared by law, that "each organized town
shall keep and support one or more schools provd-
ed with competent teachers" that the towns shall be
divided into school districts; that certain district Of
cers shall be appointed that taxes shall be assess
ed and collected to build school houses and support
schools and that, to the income arising from these
taxes there shall be added, for the current use of
schools the annually accruing interest of the sur
plus revenue of the United States, deposited with
this State. And here, with the exception of making
provision for certain returns of school statistics,
have left the matter. If school houses are built, we
have taken no care whatever for their proper oca-
Alon or construction; and if teachers are employed
we have done nothing in regard to the all import
ant matter Of their qualifications aside from the bar
rem enactment, that they shall be "competent.
What shall constitute competency, or who shall
Legislation. The result is an admitted and lament
able deficiency in the qualifications of teachers great
and manifest defects in the modes of instruction. and
confusion and want of uniformity in regard to the
books used for that purposes while large proportion
of our school houses are located in highways, with
little regard to comfort or fitness in their internal
structure and as little to taste and beauty and con-
venence in the grounds connected with them if in
deed any grounds but those of highways are thus
connected. And yet, what an amount of money is
annually expended for the use of schools To say
nothing of the amount expended in the construc-
ton of school houses-of which we have no means
of forming estimate-let us look at the expend-
ture for teaching
From the statistics returned to me last year. from
159 of the 240 towns in the State, drew the con-
cusion in my report to the General Assembly, that
there was paid to teachers in the whole State, excl-
siye of teachers of select schools-fom which there
were no rettirns-the sum of Sl28,000 annually
+ No one can soberly consider this subject without
rs feeling painfully impressed with conviction of the
utter waste ola very great portion of this large sum-
It is not extravagan to say that its power for good
might have been doubled, and more than doubled,
if it had been expended under system of supervi-
q sion which should have carried into the schools
teachers fully competent and modes Of instruction