STATE OF MAINE. HOUSE OF REpresentatives, ORDERED, That 400 copies of the foregoing Bill be printed for the use of the Legislature. Attest, WM. T. JOHNSON, Clerk. STATE OF MAINE. THE Committee on Literature and Literary Institutions, to whom was referred an order directing them to enquire into the expediency of amending the charter of Waterville College and endowing the same with one or more townships of land, submit the following REPORT: The constitution of this State declares that a general diffusion of the advantages of education is essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people. To promote this important object, it makes it the duty of the Legislature to encourage and suitably endow from time to time, as the circumstances of the people may authorize, all academies, colleges and seminaries of learning within the State, whose charters at the time of making such endowment shall be subject to such alterations or amendment as shall be deemed necessary to promote the best interests thereof. The first duty of a free government is to educate its citizens. It has been well said by a distinguish ed governor of Massachusetts, that "it is the illumination of the universal mind that is the sure foundation of democracy. It is the elevation of every rational soul into moral and intellectual consciousness and dignity, that is to carry onward improvements in our social and civil institutions. To this end should be directed the highest aims and efforts of the Legislature." The effect of education is to elevate the people, to multiply their means of enjoyment, to diffuse knowledge, to promote virtue and to confirm and perpetuate liberty. While it exerts a powerful influence on our national and individual character, it is identified with the cause of good morals, with the purity and perpetuity of our civil and religious institutions, and with all the best interests of society. Popular education is the sheet anchor of our social system, the bond of our union, the pillar of our constitution and the charter of our safety and our rights. And in proportion to the intellectual and moral culture of the people of this republic will be its chances of surviving, in perpetual vigor, the operation of those causes which have destroyed all preceding republics and are now at work to destroy our own. Without the illumination of the popular mind, our greatest political blessing, universal suffrage, would prove our greatest curse. An ignorant people will be fit subjects for the tyranny of either kings or demagomine. |