I. THE STATE AND EDUCATION.

AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF NEW JERSEY IN 1838.*

FELLOW CITIZENS:-We were appointed by the Convention of your own delegates to address you on the subject of Common Schools. We approach you with solicitude, as deeply sensible of the great importance of the interest intrusted to us; yet, as freemen speaking to freemen, with prevailing confidence.

The points which we propose for your attention, and, if we might, would press into every heart, are few, simple and practical; the necessary consequences, it seems to us, from principles which all admit. We say that knowledge is the universal right of man: and we need bring no clearer demonstration than that intellectual nature, capable of it, thirsting for it, expanding and aspiring with it, which is God's own argument in every living soul. We say that the assertion for himself of this inherent right, to the full measure of his abilities and opportunities, is the universal duty of man: and that whoever fails of it, thwarts the design of his Creator; and, in proportion as he neglects the gift of God, dwarfs and enslaves and brutifies the high capacity for truth and liberty which he inherits. And all experience, and every page of history confirm the assertion, in the close kindred, which has everywhere been proved, of ignorance and vice with wretchedness and slavery. And we say farther, that the security of this inherent right to every individual, and its extension, in the fullest measure, to the greatest number, is the universal interest of man; so that they who deny or abridge it to their fellows, or who encourage, or, from want of proper influence, permit them to neglect it, are undermining the foundations of government, weakening the hold of society, and preparing the way for that unsettling and dissolving of all human institutions, which must result in anarchy and ruin, and in which they who have the greatest stake must be the greatest sufferers. A lesson, clearly taught by

*The Convention assembled in Trenton on the 27th and 28th of January, 1838, Chief Jus tice Hornblower presiding. The address was prepared by the Rt. Rev. George W. Doane, in behalf of a Committee consisting of Bishop Doane, Chairman, L. Q. C. Elmer, M. J Rhees, T. Frelinghuysen, J. S. Green, D. B. Ryall, A. B. Dod, A. Atwood, and S. R Gummere.