While some states have hesitated,
and others have vacillated, Massachusetts has had a consistent, uniform,
progressive policy, which is due in part to the consideration already
named, and in part, no doubt, to a popular opinion, traditional and
historical in its origin, but sustained and strengthened by the measures
and experience of the last quarter of a century, that a system of public
instruction is so important an element of general prosperity as to
justify all needful appropriations for its support.
It may, then, be claimed for the Massachusetts School Fund, that the
expectations of those by whom it was established have been realized;
that it has given unity and efficiency to the school system; that it has
secured accurate and complete returns from all the towns; that it has,
consequently, promoted a good understanding between the Legislature and
the people; that it has increased local taxation, but has never been a
substitute for it; and that it has enabled the Legislature, at all times
and in every condition of the general finances, to act with freedom in
regard to those agencies which are deemed essential to the prosperity of
the common schools of the state.
Having thus, in the history of the school fund, fully justified its
establishment, so in its history we find sufficient reasons for its
sacred preservation. While other communities, and even other states,
have treated educational funds as ordinary revenue, subject only to an
obligation on the part of the public to bestow an annual income on the
specified object, Massachusetts has ever acted in a fiduciary relation,
and considered herself responsible for the principal as well as the
income of the fund, not only to this generation, but to every generation
that shall occupy the soil, and inherit the name and fame of this
commonwealth.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293