the cause of education in the vicinity will
be unfavorably affected. Nor let the objection that a rigid standard of
qualifications will exclude many pupils, and diminish the attendance
upon the school, have great weight; for you perform but half your duty
when you provide the means of a good education for your own students.
You are also, through the power inherent in this authority, to do
something to elevate the standard of learning in other schools, and in
the country around. What harm if this school be small, while by its
influence other schools are made better, and thus every boy and girl in
the vicinity has richer means of education than could otherwise have
been secured? Thus will tens, and hundreds, and thousands, of successive
generations, have cause to bless this school, though they may never have
sat under its teachers, or been within its walls.

In a system of public schools, everything may be had at its prime cost.
There need be no waste of money, or of the time or power of teachers. As
the public system must everywhere exist, it is a matter of economy to
bring all the children under its influence. The private system never can
educate all; therefore the public system cannot be abandoned, unless we
consent to give up a part of the population to ignorance. It may, then,
be said that the private schools, essential in many cases, ought to give
way whenever the public schools are prepared to do the work; and when
the public schools are so prepared, the existence of private schools
adds their own cost to the necessary cost of popular education.

But we are not to encourage parsimony in education; for parsimony in
this department is not true economy. It is true economy for the state
and for a town to set up and maintain good schools as cheaply as they
can be had, yet at any necessary cost, so only that they be good.
Massachusetts is prosperous and wealthy to-day, respected in evil report
as well as in good, because, faithful to principle and persistent in
courage, she has for more than two hundred years provided for the
education of her children; and now the re-flowing tide of her wealth
from seaboard and cities will bear on its wave to these quiet valleys
and pleasant hill-sides the lovers of agriculture, friends of art,
students of science, and such as worship rural scenes and indulge in
rural sports; but the favored and first-sought spots will be those where
learning has already chosen her seat, and offers to ma