ports to the Department and of
frequent inspections, indicate the relative merit of postmasters of each
class. They will be appropriately indicated in the Official Register and
in the report of the Department. That a great stimulus would thus be
given to the whole service I do not doubt, and such a record would be
the best defense against inconsiderate removals from office.

The interest of the General Government in the education of the
people found an early expression, not only in the thoughtful and
sometimes warning utterances of our ablest statesmen, but in liberal
appropriations from the common resources for the support of education
in the new States. No one will deny that it is of the gravest national
concern that those who hold the ultimate control of all public affairs
should have the necessary intelligence wisely to direct and determine
them. National aid to education has heretofore taken the form of land
grants, and in that form the constitutional power of Congress to promote
the education of the people is not seriously questioned. I do not think
it can be successfully questioned when the form is changed to that of a
direct grant of money from the public Treasury.

Such aid should be, as it always has been, suggested by some exceptional
conditions. The sudden emancipation of the slaves of the South, the
bestowal of the suffrage which soon followed, and the impairment of the
ability of the States where these new citizens were chiefly found to
adequately provide educational facilities presented not only exceptional
but unexampled conditions. That the situation has been much ameliorated
there is no doubt. The ability and interest of the States have happily
increased.

But a great work remains to be done, and I think the General
Government should lend its aid. As the suggestion of a national grant
in aid of education grows chiefly out of the condition and needs of
the emancipated slave and his descendants, the relief should as far
as possible, while necessarily proceeding upon some general lines, be
applied to the need that suggested it. It is essential, if much good is
to be accomplished, that the sympathy and active interest of the people
of the States should be enlisted, and that the methods adopted should
be such as to stimulate and not to supplant local taxation for school
purposes.

As one Congress can not bind a succeeding one in such a case and as
the effort must in some degree be experimental, I recomm