individuals, shall be able to ask for a
final settlement.

It is therefore recommended that the statutes providing for the
allowance of claims against the State by the commissioners of
military claims be repealed; the repeal to take effect at such date
in the future as will afford opportunity for the presentation and
allowance of all just claims.

The report of the commissioner of common schools shows that, upon
the whole, the educational interests of the State continue to be
very prosperous. He presents, however, for your consideration, a
number of changes in the school laws, which he deems essential to
further progress. The proposed reforms are treated of in his report
under the following heads: normal instruction, supervision, a
codification of the laws, and the township system.

The commanding position which Ohio has held in the great
transactions of our recent civil and military history is largely
due to the educational advantages enjoyed by her people. Every
measure which tends to continue and increase those advantages
merits your earnest and favorable consideration.

For many years the most eminent teachers and friends of education
have urged the necessity of establishing institutions for the
instruction of teachers in the principles and duties of their high
and honorable calling. A few thousand dollars of the school fund
applied every year to this purpose will, it is believed, make the
expenditures for school purposes vastly more beneficial to the
State.

There are serious objections to the present mixed system of school
management by means of township boards and sub-district directors.
It is believed that this system ought to give place to the purely
township system, in which all of the schools of the township are
under the exclusive control of a board of education chosen by the
electors of the township. This plan is in conformity with that
which has been adopted with satisfactory results in most of our
towns, and is sustained by the experience of other States in which
the purely township system has been tried.

In several counties of the State colored children are practically
deprived of the privilege of attending public schools. The denial
of education to any citizen of Ohio is so manifestly unjust that it
is confid