New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1850-06-28
DISSENT.

The undersigned, uniting generally in the views
hereinbefore setforth by the Chairman and majority
of the Committee asks leave to record his dissent
from SO much of this Report as commends the foun-
dation objects and management Of the Free Aca.
denny, for reasons which he will barely indicate as
follows:
l. believe the Course of Instruction pursued in
that Academy, radically defective and vicious, in
that it contempates and provides for the devotion
of considerable share Of the means of the Semin-
AIRY, and the time of its pupils to the study of dead
languages, to the necessary exclusion and neglect
of sciences and arts which seem me of far greater
practical importanceto at least nineteentwentieths
of our youth.
., DO not know that its management is so ell
cient, nor that its nculcatons so effective and
successful as this Report represents them.
3. distrust and challenge the policy Of giving a
part OF the children Of our City far more costly
education. at the public expense, than is provided
for and freely proered to all children, without re-
serve or exception The only case in which can
Justify departure from the fundamental Repub
can maxim of equal advantages and opportunities
for all, is that of Normal School, whereby the
State for its own advantage and benefit, accords to
certain eminenty tit persons superior education,
expressly to fit them for teachers and with the
implied, if not express condition, that that they
shall regard such education as a loan or advance,
to be repaid by future service as teachers in our
Common Schools. Apart from any such compact,
! deny the right OF the community to give supe-
ror education to its most intellectual and cultivated
youth. The profound truth Divinely announced,
that "To him that hath shall be given, While from
him that hath shall be taken that he hath,
has abundant scope and power in our existing So
ciety and needs no novel and extraordinary agen-
cies invoked to render its operation more sweeping
and universal Ifit be proper for our City to iacur
an additional and heavy expense TO promote espe-
ciay the education OF any particular class it should
not be the apt in study the brilliant, the eminenty
proficient, who should be selected the subject Of
its experiment, the recipients of its bounty bat
rather the step children OF Nature and OF Fortune
the outcast, the benghted, the brutalized, the
homeless and the miserable. The cost of this Free
Academy, judciously expended, would suffice 20
rescue, annually, at least one thousand destitute
and sorely afflicted children from Citys lanes,
courts and cellars, where they are daily sinking
deeper and deeper into the bottomess gulf Of va.
grsncy want beggary, theft, prostitution, disease
and death, and place them in yirtuous and happy,
though humble homes, where the blessings of wise
guardianship, assured plenty, education, industry
ard proficiency in the useful arts would be secured
to them. For these and kindred reasons which | |
will not here require shall be set FORTH protest
against the existence Of the Free Academy, and |
dem and its termination.
All which Is respectfuly submitted
May 8, 1850. HORACE GREELEY.