re and people will be weakened. Moreover,
any definite sum of money is worth less than it was twenty years ago;
and it is reasonably certain that the same sum will be less valuable in
1860, and yet less valuable in 1870, than it is now. Hence, if the fund
remain nominally the same, it yet suffers a practical annual decrease.
It is further to be presumed that the Legislature will find it expedient
to advance in its legislation from year to year. A small number of
towns, few or many, may not always approve of what is done, and it is
quite important that the influence of the fund should be sufficient to
enable the state to execute its policy with uniformity and precision.

As is well known, the expenses of the educational department are
defrayed from the other half of the income of the fund. From this income
the forty-eight scholarships in the colleges, the Normal Schools, the
Teachers' Institutes, the Agents of the Board of Education, are
supported, and the salaries of the Secretary and the Assistant-Secretary
are paid. As has been stated, the surplus carried to the capital of the
fund in June last was only $1,843.68. The objects of expenditure,
already named, may be abolished, but no reasonable plan of economy can
effect much saving while they exist. It is also reasonably certain that
the expenses of the department must be increased. The law now provides
for twelve Teachers' Institutes, annually, and there were opportunities
during the present year for holding them; but, in order that one agent
might be constantly employed, and a second employed for the term of six
months, I limited the number of sessions to ten.

The salaries of the teachers in the Normal Schools are low, and the
number of persons employed barely adequate to the work to be done. Some
change, involving additional expense, is likely to be called for in the
course of a few years.

In view of the eminent aid which the school fund has rendered to the
cause of education, with due deference to the wisdom and opinions of its
founders, and with just regard to the existing and probable necessities
of the state in connection with the cause of education, I earnestly
favor the increase of the school fund by the addition of a million and a
half of dollars.

Nor does the proposition for the state to appropriate annually $180,000
in aid of the common schools seem unreasonable, when it is considered
that the military expenses are $65,000, the reformatory and correcti