The whole number of children under instruction | is 94,605, of whom 1,953 are colored. New Jersey has an invested school fund of very nearly $400,000. PENNSYLVANIA maintains 9,699 public schools at a cost of a little more than a million dollars a year. The average rate of compensation for male teachers is $18.75 per month; for females, $11. 46; but the schools are kept open on an average only five months in the year. In Philadelphia, there are a Normal and a High school. The public schools of Philadelphia cost $7,16 a year, for each pupil. DELAWARE has 236 common schools, and expends $19,469 a year in their support. MARYLAND has a school-fund of $150,000, particulars respecting the expenditure of which we do not possess. VIRGINIA, so far as we know, has no organized system of public schools; nor, we believe, have North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas. SOUTH CAROLINA supports 4,023 common schools, attended by 9,022 pupils, at an annual cost of 10,580. Governor Means, in his message, November, 1852, says: "There seems to be a general belief that it (the Free School System) works badly, except in large cities. Conducted as they are in the country, I do not hesitate to pronounce it an almost useless expenditure of the public fund; yet I am far from being willing to recommend a discontinuance of the appropriation. I am sure the system could be so altered and improved as to work well with us." He recommends the appointment of a suitable and competent person to travel over the State to witness its operations, and suggest improvements. GEORGIA has a school-fund of $23,086, the interest of which is divided among the counties, according to the population. MISSISSIPPI has no uniform school system. Each township has a school-fund arising from the lease of lands granted by Congress for common school purposes, every sixteenth section in each township having been so granted. These lands are leased mostly for ninety nine years. The money thence arising is loaned annually, at not less than eight, nor more than ten per cent. per annum interest. This interest is the amount applied to tuition, etc., annually from the township fund. There is also a county fund, arising from fines, forfeitures, licenses, etc., which is distributed in those townships that are destitute, or have but a small school-fund. LOUISIANA imposes a tax for school purposes of one mill on a dollar, and a poll tax of one dollar on each white inhabitant. There is also a school-fund of $325,025. The State supports 704 schools, and expends $25,000 a year upon them. Yet, there are more than 20,000 white children in the State who do not attend school at all. TENNESSEE has a school-fund of nearly a mil. lion and a half of dollars. KENTUCKY has a fund nearly as large as that of Tennessee, and expends $111,600 a year for school purposes; but out of the 215,195 children in the State, only 69,835 attend school. OHIO spends somewhat more than $200,000 a year in maintaining her 9,916 schools. In one year-1852-Ohio built 181 school-houses. The State is in earnest on the subject of education. INDIANA holds property, in trust, for the education of her children, which is valued at five millions of dollars. The income of this property, which consists chiefly of land, is to be devoted exclusively and for ever to the support of free schools. ILLINOIS has a school fund of nearly a million of dollars, which the State borrowed some years The State ago, at an interest of six per cent. can boast of 3,000 school-houses and seventy-six school libraries. Male teachers receive an average of $17.64 a month; females, $10.32, and three days in the the schools are kept open six months and twentyyear. MISSOURI has a school fund of half a million; and, in addition to this, the Legislature has apfor the support of the free schools, which swells propriated one-fourth of the revenues of the State the amount to be annually distributed, to $140,000. of public education. The constitution provides IOWA has made a spirited beginning in behalf that a Superintendent of Public Instruction shall be chosen by the people for three years, and that all escheated estates, shall constitute a perpetual all lands granted by Congress to this State, and fund, the interest of which shall be applied to the support of common schools; and all moneys received for exemption from military duty, and for fines imposed by the courts, shall be appropriated to support such schools, or for the establishment of school libraries. WISCONSIN has a school-fund of $816,220, and expends already more than $120,000 a year for educational purposes. There are nearly 2,000 schools in operation, which are provided_with libraries, to the extent of 1,000 volumes. There are 66 school-houses of brick, 74 of stone, 778 of logs, and 812 framed, and all are valued at $561,986.32. The highest valuation of any school-house is $5,550, and the lowest $150. CALIFORNIA has made splendid provision for the future. The constitution provides for the election of a Superintendent of Public Instruction, to hold office for three years. By the same instrument, the proceeds of the public lands granted to the State for schools, the 500,000 acres granted to new States under the act of Congress, and estates of persons dying without heirs, shall be a fund, the interest of which and the rents of unsold lands are to be inviolably appropriated to the support of common schools. The Legislature has established a Board of Edu cation for the State, consisting of the Governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Surveyor General. Each town elects three persons as commissioners of schools for the town, and a constable as a common school marshal. Provision is also made for County Superintendents. The Legislature has devoted one-twentieth part of the tax upon real and personal property to the support of common schools. The public school system is already in operation, and more than 4,000 children are reported to be under instruction. For the free instruction of the people, therefore, there are in the whole United States, in round numbers, 60,000 schools, which are supported at an annual expense of something less than six millions of dollars, of which sum more than half is expended by the two States of New York and Massachusetts. In this survey of the common school facts of the different States, we find little cause for boasting though much for hope. For, though nearly every State in the Union has recognized its duty to see that no child within its borders grows up in ignorance, yet only a few of the States have taken up the subject of universal education with anything like the earnestness which its importance demands. Teachers generally are ill paid, and hence, ill qualified; and it is a startling fact, that the people of the United States pay quite half as much every year for the support of their dogs as they do for the education of their children. A well-informed man is still a rarity, and multitudes of the people "spell character with a k," and are ready to affirm, that "oats is cheaper than they was last year."-Home Journal. SPEECH OF GERRIT SMITH OF NEW YORK, ON WAR. The bill making appropriations for the support of the Military Academy being before the House on 1st month 18th, Gerrit Smith addressed the House as follows: I believe in the progress of the human race. I delight to dwell upon the idea of an ever-growing civilization. Hence it is, that I am afflicted at every demonstration of the war spirit. For the spirit of war is the spirit of barbarism; and, notwithstanding the general impression to the contrary, war is the mightiest of all the hinderances to the progress of civilization. But the spirit of this bill is the dark, barbarous, baleful spirit of war; and, therefore, would I use all honorable means to defeat the bill. It is strange-it is sad-that, in a nation professing faith in the Prince of Peace, the war spirit should be so rampant. That in such a nation there should be any manifestation whatever of this spirit, is grossly inconsistent. How vast, incomprehensively vast, the loss of life by war! There are various estimates of this loss. Burke's estimate, if my recollection is right, is, that thirty-five thousand millions of persons have perished by war; that is, some thirty-five times as many as the whole present population of the earth. In Bible language: "Who slew all these ?" War slew them. And, when contemplating this vast slaughter, how natural to inquire, in other words of that blessed book, "Shall the sword devour forever?" And how immense the loss of property by war! The annual cost of the war system to Europe alone, including interest on her war debt, exceeds a thousand millions of dollars. The government of our own nation has expended, on account of the army and fortifications, more than five hundred millions of dollars; and, on account of the navy and its operations, more than half that sum. But to ascertain the whole loss of property, which this nation has suffered by war, we must take into the reckoning many other items, and, especially, the cost of the militia. Now, this last item, not according to mere conjecture, but according to the computation of those capable of making it, is fifteen hundred millions of dollars. Add, then, to what our nation has paid for war, and to her loss of property by war, the interest on these payments and losses, and you have an aggregate equalling a large share of the whole present wealth of the nation. And, just here, I would say a few words on national debts. As such debts are, in the main, war debts, there can be no assignable limit to their accumulation, so long as war is thought to be necessary-for so long there will be warsand, until war is abandoned, it will be held to be unjust and dishonorable to repudiate war debts, no matter how crushing, and increasingly crushing, from age to age, may be the burden of such debts. So commanding is the influence of war, and so world-wide and mighty the senti ment which it has been able to create in favor of itself, that no debts are deemed more sacred and such debts being, in truth, sacred and obligatory, obligatory than war debts. And yet, so far from there is the most urgent and imperative duty to repudiate them. No doctrine should be more indignantly scouted than the doctrine, that one generation may anticipate and waste the earnings and wealth of another generation. Nothing is plainer than that the great impartial Father of us all would have every generation enter upon its course unmortgaged and unloaded by prior generations. Nothing is plainer than that in those States of Europe, where the war debt is so great, that the very life-blood of the masses must be squeezed out to pay the annual interest upon it, repudiation must take place, ere those masses can rise into even a tolerable existence. It is a very common remark at the present time that Europe needs a revolution. She does need a revolution. But she needs repudiation more. However, there never will be a decided and wholesome revolution in Europe that does not involve repudiation. If a people, on whom the wars and crimes of past generations have entailed It would, perhaps, be wrong to ascribe the co1an overwhelming burden of debt, shall achieve a tinuance of war to the low and perverted state of revolution, of which repudiation is not a part, the moral and religious sense. It would, pertheir labor and sacrifice will be lost-their revo-haps, be more proper to ascribe it to the prevaillution will be spurious and vain. It is absurd to claim that the people of England and Holland are morally bound to continue to dig from the earth, and to produce by other forms of toil the means for paying the interest on their enormous war debt. They are morally bound to break loose from this load, and to drag it no longer. For, so long as they drag it, they cannot exercise the rights of manhood, nor enjoy the blessings, nor fulfil the high purposes of human existence. Is it said, that the Government, for whose wars they are now paying, would have been overthrown but for these wars? I answer, that the Government, which involved its subjects in those wars, was the greatest curse of those subjects, and is the greatest curse of their successors. The maintenance of such a government is loss; its overthrow is gain. I do not deny that the case is possible in which a generation would be morally bound to assume the debt created by its predecessor. But, even then, such generation should be the sole judge of its obligation to assume the debt. Were the cholera raging over the whole length and breadth of our land, and sweeping off millions of our people; and were a foreign nation to minister to our relief by lending us money; if we could not repay the loan, our successors should; and such a loan they would be glad to repay. I would incidentally remark, that civil government will be neither honest nor frugal, so long as the practice of war is continued. I say so for the reason, that the extensive means necessary to carry on wars, or pay war debts, cannot be obtained by direct taxation. The people will consent to their being obtained only by indirect taxation; and no government ever was, or ever will be, either honest or frugal, whose expenses are defrayed by indirect taxation; for no government whose expenses are thus defrayed, ever was or ever will be held to a strict responsibility by the people; and no government, not held to such responsibility, ever was or ever will be either honest or frugal. I have referred to the loss of life and property by war-of life, that is so precious-of property, that is so indispensable to the enjoyment and usefulness of life. But there is an unspeakably greater loss than this with which war is also chargeable. I refer to the damage which morals and religion suffer from it. All I need add on this point is, that the power of war to demoralize the world, and to corrupt the purest religion in the world, is abundantly manifest in the fact, that the moral and religious sense of even good men is not shocked by war. No stronger argument can be brought against war than the fact of its power to conform the morals and religion of the world to war. ing delusion that war is unavoidable. And yet, it may be that a better state of the moral and religious sense would have entirely prevented this delusion. But, however this delusion may be accounted for, or whatever may be responsible for it, it is consoling to know, that it is not so well nigh impossible to dispel it, as is generally supposed. A fresh baptism of wisdom and goodness may, perhaps, be needed to that end; but no new faculties, and not a new birth. Nay, were we to apply to the subject of war no more than our present stock of good sense and good feeling-no more than our mental and moral faculties, as they now are-it is probable that war could not long withstand the application. The doctrine that war is a necessity is the greatest of all libels on man. The confidence which, in private life, we manifest in each other, proves that it is such a libel. We walk the streets unarmed. We go to bed without fear, and with unlocked doors; and we thus prove, that we regard our fellow-men as our friends, and not our foes—as disposed to protect and not to harm us. It is true, that there is here and there one that would rob us, and, at very far wider intervals, one that would kill us. But we are at rest in the consciousness that, where there is one to assail us there are a hundred to defend us. Indeed, society could not be held together, were it not true that the generality of men are swayed by love and confidence and generosity, existing either in their own hearts, or accorded by them to others. The men who are swayed by distrust and hatred, constitute the exceptional cases. Have I then an evil-minded neighbor? I, nevertheless, need not fight with him. I may rely, under God, upon the mass of my neighbours to protect me against him. So, too, if there is here and there a malicious American, and here and there a malicious Englishman, who would be guilty of involving their countries in a war with each other; nevertheless, the mass of Americans and Englishmen, inasmuch as they prefer international amity to international quarrels, should be relied on to preserve peace; and they would preserve it if so relied on. Now, it is in this point of view, that the nation, which is determined to keep out of war, will never find itself involved in war, and that nothing is hazarded by adopting the peace policy. I add, that as it is not in human nature, under its ordinary influences and in its ordinary circumstances, to fall upon an unarmed and unresisting man, so the nation, which puts its trust not in weapons of war, but in the fraternal affections of the human heart, and in the God who planted those affections there, will find this trust an effectual shield from the horrors of war. Such a shield did the good men who founded Pennsylvania find this [To be continued.) FRIENDS' REVIEW. PHILADELPHIA, THIRD MONTH 4, 1854. Miner's School for Colored Girls in this city, and tem in America, but there can be no question From Professor Horsford, of Cambridge University. I was present at a morning exercise of Miss Miner's School for Colored Girls in Washington, during the winter of 1852-53. The pupils present were of various ages from eight to sixteen years, and were plainly but neatly and comfortably clad. They consisted of mulattoes and quadroons for the most part, though some were obviously of pure African blood, and others could with difficulty be distinguished from whites. Some portions of an address from Myrtilla MiThe exercises were in spelling, reading, geoner, to the friends of the colored race, which has lain for some time on the Editor's table, are intro- thors, moral philosophy and translations from the graphy, penmanship, composition, analysis of auduced into the present number. The importance French. The degree of attainment some had of extending to the descendants of the Africo- made, the manifest interest of all, and the preAmerican race the benefits of education has been vailing healthful moral and religious tone were such, as to show that the School had been emilong felt and acknowledged by our most enlight-nently successful. This is true, whether consiened philanthropists. This was one of the means dered in view of its effects upon those who reproposed by the benevolent Anthony Benezet for ceive the instruction, or upon the families whose raising this oppressed class to their homes will be made happier, by the light that proper level, to which he devoted a considerable share of his that circle of larger, if not indefinite extent, which will accompany the knowledge thus imparted, or time, and the principal part of the little property will be blessed by the indirect influence of such which his expansive liberality left in his posses- an institution. sion at his death. The laws of many, if not most of the slaveholding states, discourage the instruction even of the free colored population, and the public papers have recently furnished the disgusting details of the prosecution and imprisonment of a female in a neighbouring State, on a charge of teaching negroes to read and write. Happily, in the District of Columbia, and the Capital of the Union, such philanthropists as Myrtilla Miner are not liable to be fined or imprisoned for such an act. Her useful and benevolent labours, however, cannot be prosecuted without pecuniary resources; and we have ample assurance that any contributions which may be made to this object will be faithfully applied. Out of a large number of testimonials of M. Miner's qualifications for the task she has undertaken, the following are selected : From Orville Dewey. WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 1853. Few out of Washington can duly estimate the difficulties of organizing and sustaining there such a School. It requires on the part of its head, the rarest union of qualifications. There must be, beside varied accomplishments, the more important good sense, discretion, tact and energy, which wait upon all successful enterprises. In addition to these, Miss Miner has the deep religious faith, that united with other attributes, gives the fullest assurance, that while her life and health are continued, the school must prosper. I do not hesi tate to add, that have never attended a School exercise that interested me more deeply than that of Miss Miner's at Washington, nor can I escape the conviction that if the School can be maintained, its usefulness in the great cause of humanity will be more marked than if the pupils were white instead of colored. Cambridge, Dec. 28, 1853. E. N. HORSFORD. The remarks of Gerrit Smith in the House of Representatives at Washington, a portion of which is given this week, to our readers, furnish some original views in relation to the kind of hands to which the preservation of the public peace ought to be entrusted. If his plan does not come up to what many among us, the Editor of rah Crew, all members of Salem monthly meet this periodical included, regard as the true Chris-ing of Friends. tian standard, it may be fairly considered as a valuable approximation to that standard. While the DIED, On the evening of the 16th ult., in the 75th year rulers of nations so generally rely on the applica- and overseer of Radnor Monthly Meeting. of her age CATHARINE JONES, a member tion of brute force for the maintenance of their While evincing by a life of practical piety, her rights and the preservation of peace, it is a satis-belief that faith without works is dead," she faction, and perhaps a harbinger of better times, emphatically recognized that Christian doctrine, to witness an effort, even if it should prove, at have done, but according to his mercy he saveth that "it is not by works of righteousness that we present, an isolated one, to fix the attention of us." Thus, for her, death had no terrors, but, with legislators upon the propriety of introducing a lamp trimmed and light burning she calmly higher moral standard among those who are en-awaited the coming of the bridegroom of souls. trusted with the execution of such laws as are provided for the maintenance of order and peace. It must be obvious, on a primary view of the subject, that one of the most effectual means to preserve tranquility, both among ourselves, and with foreign nations, is to avoid, as far as possible, all such measures as are likely to arouse the passions from which contests, domestic and international, arise. Of course if an armed police, on land, or on the ocean, or on both, is deemed requisite, a sober rationality would appear to dictate that it should be composed of men who would not needlessly irritate the passions which their own organization was designed to control. The circular, published this week in the Review, relative to Haverford School, is intended to attract the attention of our readers, and particularly those at a distance, to that noble institution. In the establishment and maintenance of seminaries of learning, within the precincts of our religious society, one of the most stubborn obstacles to Those who watched by her sick bed will long remember the serenity which marked her closing hours; so full of sweetness and love that to them it seemed as if a foretaste had even then been granted her, of that bliss which they reverently believe it is now in its fulness her privilege to enjoy, through the mercy of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - At his residence near Mount Pleasant, Jefferson County Ohio, on the 16th of 11th month last, after a short illness, CURTIS GRUBB, a member of Short Creek monthly meeting, in the 85th year of his age. On the 21st of 11th month last, suddenly of apoplexy, in Shelby, Orleans Co., N. Y.| CYNTHIA, wife of ALLEN MASON, aged nearly 60, a member and Elder of Elba monthly meeting. FRIENDS' ASYLUM. to the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived INDIAN CIVILIZATION. success has been found in the want of suitably A Friend and his wife are wanted to reside at qualified teachers. This deficiency, the semina-Tunessassah, to be engaged in managing the ry at Haverford is well calculated to supply. A Farm belonging to the Committee of Philadelphia heavy expense has been incurred in the provision Yearly Meeting, and the domestic concerns of the of the needful auxiliaries, and instructors well family. qualified for their respective stations have been procured. Hence it is confidently believed that this institution furnishes an opportunity of a more complete education than can be obtained in any other within the society. It will no doubt be a satisfaction to many of our readers to learn, that our Friends, Josiah Forster, John Candler, and William Holmes, arrived at this city, about the middle of last month, and after a short stay in this vicinity proceeded on their mission toward the northern and eastern part of Application may be made to JOSEPH ELKINTON, 377 South 2d St., SLAVE LABOR IN CUBA. fit of the production of sugar in this island, enI believe my inquiries as to the cost and proable me to afford a fair opportunity for deciding ba and free labor in Jamacia. Before, however, as to the comparative cost of slave labor in Cuentering upon the question as to the "relative cost," I deem it requisite to give some details which I have gathered, as to the manner the slaves in this island are worked, together with some other matters connected with the question. In this island, considerable tracts of land, hithMARRIED,-At Friends' Meeting, Salem, Iowa, erto uncultivated, are annually taken into cultion the 25th of 1st month, 1854, CHARLES J. POUL-vation. I have been upon a sugar estate of conTER, to SUSANNAH W. daughter of Walter and Sa-siderable extent, the owner of which, a Creole, the Union. Our friend Lindley M. Hoag, arrived at New York in the Baltic on the 20th of last month. |