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measures to consign a whole generation now existingto brutish ignorance, in order that the next mightriot in its earnings, and sink in the same mannerinto oblivion, without having been provided withmeans of any rational enlargement of the most ennobling faculties. She has not been terrified bythe fear that the coming age, which is to be the heirof her noble heritage of knowledge, freedom, andmoral power, should be compelled to pay out of itsimmense resources, a few of the millions by whichthat heritage was originally obtained. She has per-ceived it to be sound policy to incur a debt, when thetransaction is sure to multiply a hundred fold thepower of repaying it. The system of internal im-provements, instead of absorbing and annihilatingthose very resources which are wanted to sustainpublic spirit and intelligence, by means of education,is, in New-York, made to minister directly and effec-tually to that object, and thus to react in producingagain the foresight and discernment which werealone requisite to, understand the utility of thoseimprovements, even before they had an existence. Origin of the System. The foundation of a sys-tem of common schools was laid in this state nearlyforty years ago. The first act to that effect waspassed April 9, 1795, appropriating out of the annualrevenues of the state, twenty thousand pounds annu-ally, for five years, for the purpose of encouragingand maintaining schools in the several cities andtowns in the state. The several counties were re-quired to raise a sum equal to one half of that appro-priated to each by the state. At the expiration ofthis law, in 1800, the legislature refused to renew it;but, in 1805, impelled, probably, by a sense of the deprivation under which the state laboured, in beingagain thrown back upon voluntary, iridividual, orlocal efforts, the legislature passed an act, providingthat the nett proceeds of five hundred thousand acresof vacant and unappropriated public lands should