The substance of these letters was commenced in publication more than two years ago, in a different form, with the signature of Cleveland, in the Raleigh Register. It soon appeared that, from failure of health and inevitable avocations, my purpose could not then be prosecuted. From the postponement, greater opportunity has been given of revolving the subject, and maturing the plan it was then intended to suggest, of popular education. I believe, however, that nothing material has since occurred to change the views then contemplated, and they are now presented in the form of letters, instead of numbers with the chosen signature.

I have no need to inform you that my life has been much, may I not say exclusively conversant with the subject of education. It has been passed too, among your selves, in habitual familiarities with the necessities of the state, its difficulties, the habits of the people, your peculiar sentiments on the subjects of legislation, and on the nature and extent of the means at once in unison with your inclinations and commensurate with your resources. The necessity of such information for the construction of plans to advance the interests and meliorate the condition of the people is indisputable. The writer of these letters is fully sensible of the deficiency of any pretensions he can properly make to a competent share of this species of qualification, compared with what might be rationally expected from the circumstances in which he has been acting for more than five and thirty years, and in comparison too with many others of his fellow citizens, who have enjoyed far less opportunities in reference to this particular subject. It has been his object however, to discipline his views to the particular circumstances of his countrymen whose welfare he would consult, and to exclude everything which would be impracticable or hopeless for want of concurrence with their established modes of motives and action, while he should forever repudiate the thought of urging one consideration, or recommending one step, perceived to be variant from integrity, and in the practical adoption of which he is not prepared to make common cause with his countrymen to its utmost issue.

When a people have continued long in one course of legislation, when they have frequently and habitually resisted essays made to diversify or enlarge it, any measure which looks beyond the limits of their ordinary action, must conspicuously embody advantages great and numerous and unquestionable, if it would hope for complacent consideration, much more for final acceptance. Should an innovation in any instance gain their assent, and through malformation or mismanagement unhappily fail to secure its object, the event will be pregnant with disappointment to all future efforts at improvement. If on the contrary it should prove successful, even inveterate prejudice may be weakened and dissolved and many things become easy which before were impossible.

There is perhaps no art or science in which greater improvement has been made than in that of education in primary schools. It has assumed a character wholly different from that of former times, and from that in which it still appears among ourselves. The mode of communicating instruction, the variety of which it consists, the interest ever kept alive in the bosom of the pupil, the exclusion of corporal punishment with which it is most successfully conducted, the activity and versatility to which it trains the intellectual faculties, the life and force which it imparts to the human affections, and the wide range of thought and knowledge which it opens before the reason and curiosity of the pupil, transcend the anticipated pictures even of an indulged imagination. Could we witness it in its processes and effects, its superior excellence would assuredly occur to us with a conviction as complete, as every one now feels in favor of the gin in preference to the fingers in the process of now cleaning cotton, of the steamboat compared with sails or oars, or of a locomotive engine carrying its numerous tons at twelve miles an hour, contrasted with the labor and plodding movement of wagons and horses, of which unhappily to our incalculable loss we are still fain to avail ourselves, over the sharp pinches, the floundering water pits and jolting obstacles of highways on which the hand of improvement has never operated. Nothing certainly is wanted but this occular demonstration, to the resolute and instant adoption of all these astonishing and inestimable improvements which distinguish the generation of men and the age to which we belong, above the bygone ages and generations of the world. But to witness the present perfection of the school master's art is not our privilege, for its examples are too remote. And this presents an obstacle to any system of elementary schools we can recommend for the children of our state.

Another obstruction meets us in our aversion to taxation beyond the bare necessities of government and the public tranquility. Any scheme of popular education must be capable of deriving existence originally, and of maintaining it perpetually, without taxing us for the purpose, or we are well aware that we shall not as a people consent to its establishment.

A still further difficulty is felt in the indifference unhappily prevalent in many of our people on the subject of education. Vast numbers have grown up into life, have passed into its later years and raised families without it: and probably there are multitudes of whose fore-fathers this is no less to be said. Human nature is ever apt to contract prejudices against that which has never entered into its customs. Especially is this likely to be the case if there have been large numbers who were subject in common to our same defects and privations. They sustain themselves by joint interest and feelings against the disparagements and disadvantages of their condition. It becomes even an object to believe that the want of education is of little consequence; and as they have made their way through the world without it, better than some who have enjoyed its privileges, they learn to regard it with slight if not with opposition, especially when called to any effort or contribution of funds for securing its advantages to the children. Such are the woful consequences to any people who, in the formation of new settlements, have not carried along with them the establishment of schools for the education of their families. So strangely may the truth be inverted in the minds of men in such circumstances, that they become avowed partizans of mental darkness against light, and are sometimes seen glorying in ignorance as their privilege and boast. When a people lapse into this state, and there is reason to fear that multitudes are to be found among us of this description, it must be no small difficulty to neutralize their antipathy against education, and enlist them in support of any system for extending it to every family in the state.

I might mention further, as one of the greatest obstructions, the scattered condition of our population, over a vast extent of territory, making it difficult to embody numbers within such a compass as will make it convenient or practicable for children to attend upon instruction.

A most serious impediment is felt in our want of commercial opportunities, by which, though we may possess ample means of subsistence to our families, money is difficult of attainment to build school houses and support teachers. Could the avenues of trade be opened to this agricultural people, funds would flow in from abroad, and resources would be created at home, which would make the support of schools and many other expenses to be felt as of no consequence. Excluded as we now are from the market of the world, the necessity of rigid economy is urged against every expenditure however small, and the first plea which meets us, when the education of children is impressed upon parents is their inability to bear the expense. This is one principle reason why it has been thought that among all the improvements upon which we are called to engage for the benefit of the state, commercial opportunity shall be the first. With the enlargement of funds, every difficulty would vanish in the way to such improvements as are rapidly elevating other states to distinction and opulence.

It appears then how numerous are the discouragements we have to encounter in framing any plan for popular education. Our habits of legislation have been long established, and their uniformity has in few instances been broken, from our first existence as a state. To provide for the education of the people, has unhappily never entered as a constituent part of these habits. We are wholly unaware of the immense improvements, which would render captivating to us if we could but witness them, the methods of instruction in elementary schools, now practiced in other parts of the world. Our aversion to taxation, even to provide for the education of poor children, is invincible, and extinguishes at once the hopes of any plan to the execution of which such means are necessary. The same fate awaits every scheme of education, which looks for success to the borrowing of funds. Through the influence of inveterate habit, large portions of our population have learned to look with indifference on education. But to what an appalling magnitude does this difficulty grow, when among many, a spirit of hostility is even boasted in behalf of ignorance against knowledge! We want resources too, and must for ever want them, not only for educating our children, but for every other improvement, so long as we are without commercial intercourse with the world.

I have already mentioned seven distinct causes of embarrassment in the organization of any plan for popular education. It were easy to extend the enumeration, but these will suffice to show the serious obstacles that meet us in the formation of a system of primary schools, to stagger our hopes of its acceptance with the people. An eighth, however, I must not omit, on account of its very great influence. It is seen in the aversion with which we recoil from laws that exercise constraint upon our actions. We are a people whose habits and wishes revolt at everything that infringes upon an entire freedom of choice upon almost every subject. It would be easy to elucidate how this has come to be a trait so deeply marked in our character, but its reality is unquestionable. Provision for general instruction can scarcely be effected, without some compulsory measures regulating the actions of individuals into particular channels directed upon the object. Every such measure is felt to be an entrenchment upon the indefinite discretion to which we tenaciously adhere, when a relinquishment of it is not absolutely indispensable.

Such difficulties as have been enumerated must be either avoided or overcome in any scheme which we would propose as practicable for popular education. And what is our object in the specification? Is it to discourage or induce the conclusion that the object is unattainable? Certainly not. If impediments must be encountered on our way to a distant spot to which we would travel, of these we ought to be well informed, lest we waste time or effort in arriving at it, or be wholly repulsed in the attempt. The obstacles appear numerous, and some are invincible, but let us endeavor to select a course that will either shun or surmount them. As a total relinquishment, can we be reconciled to acquiesce in it, till every trial shall have been made, which may issue more happily.

We have been in certain habits of legislation, until they have become fixed upon us, and any deviation from these seems to be almost instinctively regarded with aversion. Among the objects for which we have, through our whole history been accustomed to provide, education is not one. But the reason why we have never acted upon the subject is confessedly, not because it has not been deemed desirable, but that the methods proposed for effecting it have depended upon taxation. Is there no course then to be taken, to which funds thus raised are unnecessary? If one may be found, the plea of mere habit is probably displaced with the cause to which our habit, on this point at least, owes its inveteracy.

If our indifference and inactivity in regard to popular education be in any degree due to the wretchedly imperfect methods of instruction in our primary schools; if a knowledge of the admirable height of improvement which they have reached in other states, and other parts of the world, would kindle an enthusiasm for the acquisition of their privileges, which would no longer brook delay, let us hope that this want of information and light is not so essential to the subject, as to be an insuperable impediment. In truth, I have no hesitation in averring that it does constitute a difficulty equal if not superior to any other with which we have to contend. We may venture to predict, that could every parent in North Carolina be present for a few hours only to witness the process of elementary schools as they are now conducted in New York, and Connecticut, and Massachusetts, the impressions they would produce could never be effaced, nor the impulse excited in his bosom repressed. Could the conviction attending such a scene be common to every head of the family in our state, how soon would all hearts and all hands be united in some effort, which by the union would be irresistible.

With respect to the difficulty arising from our aversion to taxation, I am ready to admit, nay conclusively to affirm that it must and will be fatal to every scheme of popular education to which it is made necessary.

As to a spirit of hostility against knowledge, and a determination upon principle to sustain the cause of ignorance and to exclude all education as a foe to human happiness, and to true republicanism, the portion of our people who hold such opinions, is too small to contend with the great body of our citizens, who for the honour of our state, it is verily believed, are of entirely different sentiments. If no system of primary instruction has been established among us by legislative action, it is not that N. Carolina is at enmity with the subject itself, but because her means have been thought inadequate to its accomplishment.

Our resources doubtless fail, for want of commercial privileges. But this obstacle, too, ceases, if some plan for the diffusion of education can be effected by means already at our command.

Lastly, it is true, we are a people, whose feelings may be said to be sensitive to the irksomeness of constraint. Let us then consult this feeling with all the delicacy in our power. Let us, if possible, contrive the structure of our schools so as not to depend upon compulsion but upon inducement. Let it lie principally upon the attractions of its charms. Let it avoid giving offence by the imposing sternness of its features.

It is not then to dishearten, that I have spoken in detail of such difficulties as meet us, in digesting a plan of popular education. The survey is attended with no dispiriting effect, if we can only keep clear of one or two principal obstructions, to which the rest owe their chief if not all their influence.

It will be forever vain to mediate plans of legislative action, if we persist in looking to means, which the people have given prescriptive evidence that they will never adopt. Why continue to press schemes from year to year, involving the necessity of taxation? such projects may serve to amuse, to distract, to weaken. Party spirit, which is the bane of all wise and sound policy, is perpetuated from year to year, assumes a standing character, and is propagated among the people, poisoning the fountains of legislation. The halls of the Assembly become an arena to fight over again the same battles, in which it often happens that the best interests of the country are connected with the degradation of defeat. Success is made the test of merit. The strength of a cause is estimated not from the benefits with which it is pregnant to the state, but by the comparative numbers enlisted in its support or subversion, by adherence to a party, the agitations of hope and fear, and the delusions of artificial excitement. The triumphs of victorious opposition, even to an object so sacred and all important as the education of the people, are capable of covering the object itself with ignominy, through an indiscreet and persevering connection of it with loans and taxes to which our established feelings are in revolting and irreconcilable aversion.

The laws and measures which have been urged upon us by the most unquestionable patriotism, and by minds of every rank in ability, and which have owed their prostration to the taxes proposed for their execution, who could attempt to enumerate? They lie entombed in the mouldering records of our legislative assemblies. Were each to occupy the space of earth usually alloted to a fellow mortal, no repository of the dead in the wide range of our state would be ample enough for their receptions. Let us take warning from their fate, and look to other means.

Thousands of parents are ready to second any practicable system by which education may be accessible to their children. Let it be offered to their voluntary acceptance by the best methods of instruction, and at the least expense, and they will grasp with eagerness the proffered privilege. How can we imagine that a people like ourselves, living in an age of knowledge every where distributed through a thousand channels, can continue indifferent to its opportunities. There is not a wind of heaven, come from what quarter it may, which wafts not to our ears, improvements and discoveries that fill the world with activity and interest.

Can we sit contented to hear of them only in confused sounds, unable to examine for ourselves? Shall the eyes of a people so numerous, and prepared for the full exercise of every knowledge of personal and public freedom, continue wrapt in clouds and darkness? And shall not our imaginations, too, be set at liberty to delight themselves in the rich luxuriancy of their proper enjoyments, which the journals of travelers, the productions of genius, and publications of every discription, are daily offering to our contemplation? It is our boast that we live in an age fruitful in wonders both in art and knowledge. How deplorable is the condition of that man who is debarred all access to them by the use of books. To him who can read, the press is a watch-tower from whose summit he can extend his view over the whole earth, stretching into boundless prospects of harvests, and fruits and flowers, under a culture unexampled in the past ages of the world. To what but the press does the present generation owe its superior light? It is the vehicle by which we travel over every region of the globe, surveying its continents, islands, oceans, with their productions in endless diversity. The animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, the manners and customs of its tribes and nations, their governments, the causes of their happiness and their miseries, their institutions and inventions, superstitions and prejudices, their depravity and cruelty, their struggles for liberty, their forfeiture of its blessings by dissention, ambition, and by yielding themselves a prey to despotic power, are all made to pass in review by the mysterious revelations of the press before the optics of the mind. Who that enjoys its opportunities can frame adequate conceptions of the dark prison of his thoughts who cannot read, and the contracted limits of his intellect? To him the lament of the poet is applicable, whom blindness by disease had shut up from the light of day.

He lives indeed in the most enlightened period of the world, and the sun of knowledge is blazing in splendor around him, but he is enclosed in walls impenetrable to its beams, and he is sunk in the obscurity of a distant age.

Do we reflect, fellow citizens, on the multitudes who are in this dark and cheerless condition, constituting no small portion of our population? How many more of our generations must still grow up, to pass through life, surrounded with the gloom of three hundred years ago? Shall we not say with united voice, this evil is too grievous, too inglorious, and in its effects too mischievous to be borne? It must have a remedy and it must have it soon. Let us bring all the resources of our minds to bear anew upon the subject, and use the best means in our power to disseminate education through every county of the state, and among every portion of the people.

My last letter was occupied in showing that inefficiency of the mode of popular education, which has been our sole dependence in North-Carolina, and the pernicious effects it produces in harassing those who look to it, in disappointing their wishes, and in planting and in propagating prejudices upon the whole subject of knowledge and education. We saw that from disagreements among neighbors when schools are to be instituted, from the incompetency of teachers, their total ignorance of their profession, the profligacy, idle habits and degeneracy by which many of them are characterized, such a method of elementary instruction has left us overwhelmed in thick darkness amidst a firmament gleaming with the brightness of the most enlightened age. It is in a persevering adhesion to this system, if system it can be called, that it has become fashionable with many to decry education as a thing of no value, and as qualifying men, not for distinguished usefulness and integrity, but for dexterity in the arts of cunning and selfishness. So long as we continue these methods of educating children, it threatens an invelopement in denser clouds of obscurity and prejudice. It surely behooves us to make good our escape from it without delay, from the baleful effects it has already produced, and which it will surely multiply upon us, if it cannot be replaced by something better.

Another system which in our circumstances however is beyond our reach, it is my purpose now to explain, for the single reason that it comes upon us with reiteration from year to year, with no other consequence than to occupy our time, to distract the public mind, and to dishearten us with efforts terminating in abortion. It is the method practiced in some of our sister states, especially in Connecticut, New York and others. In these states, through time, and by such resources as they could command, a vast school fund has been treasured up, to such an amount as a million and a half of dollars. By the annual interest of these funds, schools are supported for educating every child in the country. The state is divided into districts of convenient size, a school house is erected in each, and teachers are either partially or entirely maintained by appropriations from the proceeds of the school fund. In New York a district is not entitled to aid until it can report authentically that it has already provided a school-house, and is prepared to pay a certain sum towards the support of a teacher.

Let us now enter into some computation, to see whether such a plan is within our power. If it be not, it is useless to think of it. It is worse than useless, it is time misspent on projects which must end in baffling disappointment. To make the subject plain, let us begin with the supposition of a single school in each county of North Carolina, and that fifty dollars, only, are annually allowed from a school-fund for its support. This supposition is put not with the idea that one school is enough for a county, or fifty dollars for its maintenance, but for further calculations.

The state containing sixty-four counties, an allowance of fifty dollars to each, calls for an annual expenditure of three thousand two hundred dollars. The capital necessary to yield this interest at six per cent. is 53,333 dollars. Hence the following table is easily framed, showing the capital which must be accumulated for the maintenance of schools, from one to sixteen in each county, at fifty dollars each. Fractions are omitted, except in gaining other numbers from the preceding.

TABLE I. For 1 school to a county, at $50 per annum a capital must be created and kept at interest of. $53.333 For 2 schools to a county, at $50 each $106.666 3 schools to a county, at $50 each 160.000