The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-01-05

| once a combination of selfish interests
to render it of no effect. If you shall
give to this report your careful consid-
Grafton, and then in the courage of your
convictions follow those conclusions
| which you deem to be sound and wise,
you will save to the state for the next
two years hundreds Of thousands OF dol
| lars, and so be able to vote increased
appropriations for objects that are wor-
| thy and urgent.
III voting appropriations it is we'll to
| bear in mind that object for which gov
! eminent was created. Society for its
own protection ordained government,
and then, of course, government must
protect itself. Anything which tends to
protect society and to strengthen gov
eminent is in itself legitimate object
of appropriation. But the voting of
money for any other purpose is eXtrav-
agance and wrong. Fifteen thousand
dollars spent in needless printing is ex-
travagance, voted in gratuities as extra
pay for services for which the statute
fixes compensation, it is a wrong to the
taxpayers, and cruelty to every one
Of your charitable institutions. For
there is not one of these, which, in its
| plGSSlIlS HSGu, is uOl uOlulll5 ouS At9
hand and asking you for more.
The funded debt of the state is S3,24O,-
| 100 OF this Indebtedness, bonds to the
amount of a million and a half of dol
| lars, and bearing interest at the rate of
three and one-half per cent, are due
January ], 1903. This general assembly
should give to the payment of these
bonds no consideration which will in
terfere with wise appropriations for
other objects. A state debt is not a
state blessing, but undue anxiety for
its payment is always a curse. A man
may worry over a debt, until, in its
payment he starves himself his wife,
and his children, and still find no pros
perity in the act. This matter should
be left to the next general assembly
which convenes two years before these
bonds are due. A larger surplus in the
treasury and a larger and more GER
tain income from ordinary sources may
show to be wisdom then, what is not
prudence now.
There are now in the state eighty
nine savings banks, with deposits to
the amount of over one hundred and
sixty-three millions of dollars, and with
depositors that number three hundred
and seventy-five thousand eight hum
bred and ten. But these last figures do
not correctly give the numbers of indi-
viduals who have savings in the banks.
They have been swollen by the frequent
fact that one and the same person has
deposits in several banks. The individ-
uals who have made small deposits are
much less in number than given statis-
!, - tn, hn
last year there has been little or no
increase in the savings of the poor,
while men of comparative wealth have
been using the savings banks as con-
venient and profitable means of invest
ment. The millions which have thus
gone into the banks have made it more
difficult still for these institutions to
make safe and good paying investments
and they have given to rich depositors
an interest of four per cent. on the
same money which they have been
compelled to use in buying bonds whose
net income is only a little over three
per cent Any legislation is to be COM
mended which keeps clearly in view the
purpose for which savings banks were
created, and which, within constitu-
tional limits, guards the small deposit
ors both in their principal and in their
interest.
STATE BANKS.
The state banks have the same cap
ital as year ago. and there is an in
crease of 1929, 417.00 in their deposits.
Their surplus and profit and loss ac-
counts are less by S15595.
TRUST COMPANIES.
With capital remaining the same, the
trust companies have an increase in de-
posits of SASS, 161, and an increase in the
surplus and profit and loss accounts of
$49,744.00.
EDUCATION.
The education Of the children of this
state in the public schools for the last
year cost nearly three millions of dol
lars. OF this amount a little over two
millions was for running expenses, that
is, for teachers wages, fuel, and in
cidentals. The whole cost was equal to
tax of five and one-half mills on all
the grand list of the state This is
large amount in itself, and compare
lively it is very large. 1t costs to edu-
cate each one of the enumerated chill
dren of the state fifty-five per cent,
more than it cost for such child fifteen
years ago. And yet general wages are
no higher and living expenses are less.
There is little complaint of this large
cost, for men, as a rule, pay their
school taxes cheerfully, but they are
beginning to ask whether this vast out
lay is so managed as to bring COM
results to the children and |
to the state. This qestion cannot be
decided in the discussion of an hour or
in the investigation of year. But the |
report of your board of education has q
meaning which you will do well to con-
slider. Connecticut has a school system !
admirable beyond that of almost any |
other state of the union. You have a |
school board made of men, able, earn |
est, and of whom you may well be |
proud. But year after year there is re-
vealed the same sad significant fact,
that there are thousands of children I
who do not go to school at all, and |
many, many thousands more, who so so
little that they are growing up into
manhood and womanhood with an illit-
eracy which is a grief, IL it is not a
menace to the state.
I am recommending no backward step
in the matter of the high schools of the
state, but it is time for us to stop and
whether we are not allowing
their briliancy to blind us to the fact
that there are thousands of ignorant
and neglected children whom the state