the importance of an efficient
system of education, embracing in its comprehensive and benevolent
design the whole people, can not be too frequently recurred to, goes on
to remark as follows:

"The statements furnished by the clerks of five city and borough courts,
and ninety-three of the county courts, in reply to the inquiries
addressed to them, ascertain that, of all those who applied for marriage
licenses, a large number were unable to write their names. The years
selected for this inquiry were those of =1817=, =1827=, and =1837=. The
statements show that the applicants for marriage licenses for =1817=
amounted to =4682=, of whom =1127= were unable to write; =5048= in
=1827=, of whom the number unable to write was =1166=; and in =1837= the
applicants were =4614=, and of these the number of =1047= were unable to
write their names. From which it appears there still exists a
deplorable extent of ignorance, and that, in truth, it is hardly less
than it was twenty years ago, when the school fund was created. The
statements, it will be remembered, are partial, not embracing quite all
the counties, and are, moreover, confined to one sex. The education of
females, it is to be feared, is in a condition of much greater neglect.

"There are now in the state two hundred thousand children between the
ages of five and fifteen. Forty thousand of them are reported to be poor
children, and of them only one half to be attending schools. It may be
safely assumed that, of those possessing property adequate to the
expenses of a plain education, a large number are growing up in
ignorance, for want of schools within convenient distances. Of those at
school, many derive little or no instruction, owing to the incapacity of
the teachers, as well as to their culpable negligence and inattention.
Thus the number likely to remain uneducated, and to grow up without just
perceptions of their duties, religious, social, and political, is really
of appalling magnitude, and such as to appeal with affecting earnestness
to a parental Legislature."

If there shall appear any want of agreement between these statements and
the returns made by the deputy marshals, no one need be in doubt in
relation to which has the strongest claims for credence. These
statements were communicated by the governor of a proud state to the
Legislature in his annual message. Unlike the statistics collected by
the marshals, each case was subjected to an infallible test; for no