But, in examining yet further the claim of the
public school to superior thoroughness, I must assume that it enjoys the
advantages of comfortable rooms, adequate apparatus and competent
teachers. And this assumption ought to be supported by the facts. There
is no good reason why any town in Massachusetts should be negligent or
parsimonious in these particulars. True economy requires liberal
appropriations. With these appropriations, the best teachers, even from
private schools and academies, can be secured, and all the aids and
encouragements to liberal culture can be provided. Is it possible that
any of the means of a common-school education are necessarily denied to
a million and a quarter of industrious people, who already possess an
aggregate capital of seven or eight hundred millions of dollars? But the
character of a high school must always depend materially upon the
previous training of the pupils, and the qualifications required for
admission. When the high school is a public school, the studies of the
primary and grammar or district schools are arranged with regard to the
system as a system. There is no inducement to admit a pupil for the sake
of the tuition fees, or for the purpose of adding to the number of
scholars. The applicant is judged by his merits as a scholar; and where
there is a wise public sentiment, the committee will be sustained in the
execution of just rules.
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