or elementary education. The average school-going
period is ten years. Of this, one-half is spent in vacations and
absences, so that each child has about five years of school-life. Only
one-fourth of each day is spent in the school-room; and the continuous
attendance, therefore, is about fifteen months, equal to the time which
most of us give to sleep, every four or five years of our existence.
This view leads me to say again that it is the duty of the teacher in
this brief period to lay a good foundation for subsequent scientific and
classical culture. More than this cannot be accomplished; and, where
this is accomplished, and a taste for learning is formed, and the means
to be employed are comprehended, a satisfactory school-life has been
passed.

Education--universal education--is a necessity; and, as there is no
royal road to learning, so there is no aristocracy of mental power
depending upon social or pecuniary distinctions. The New England
colonies, and Massachusetts first of all, established the system of
education now called universal or public. It was not then easy to
comprehend the principle which lies at the foundation of a system of
public instruction. We are first to consider that a system of public
instruction implies a system of universal taxation. The only rule on
which taxes can be levied justly is that the object sought is of public
necessity, or manifest public convenience. It quite often happens that
men of our own generation are insensible or indifferent to the true
relation of the citizen to the cause of education. Some seem to imagine
that their interest in schools, and of course their moral obligation to
support them, ceases with the education of their own children. This is a
great error. The public has no right to levy a tax for the education of
any particular child, or family of children; but its right of taxation
commences when the education or plan of education is universal, and
ceases whenever the plan is limited, or the operations of the system are
circumscribed.

No man can be taxed properly because he has children of his own to
educate; this may be a reason with some for cheerful payment, but it has
in itself no element of a just principle. When, however, the people
decide that education is a matter of public concern, then taxation for
its promotion rests upon the same foundation as the most important
departments of a government. Yet, many generations of men came and
passed away before