GOD 1st and 2nd!

The aim of this blog is the Restoration of the word of God as the ideal for the Moral values of this country. And the FULL RETURN of ALL of the RIGHTS guaranteed under the ORIGINAL INTENT of the FOUNDERS of The United States of America! Especially the 1st and 2nd Amendments! It should be OBVIOUS to anyone that the Liberal Socialist agenda has failed! ...choose you this day whom ye will serve...as for me and my Blog, we will serve the LORD.

Name:
Location: Superior, AZ, United States
Sic Semper Tyrannis!

Saturday, July 26, 2008

"...from the committee on schools and colleges...."

[TUESDAY, December 15, 1846]

...Mr. Westcott, from the committee on schools and colleges, made the following report:

The committee on Schools and Colleges to whom was referred that part of the [Florida] Governor's Message which relates to the Public Lands granted to the state by the United States for the purpose of promoting common schools, ask leave to

REPORT: That they believe there is no diversity of opinion in the public mind in relation to the vital importance of public education. It is a question in which all parties seem to be united, and in whatever form the subject is agitated, it finds fast and zealous friends, that it is the undivided public opinion of the state, that this legislature take ground in relation to the disposition of the sixteenth sections that the school fund may be made in its fullest extent immediately operative, and a permanent system of education established. The subject has stimulated to zealous effort, all those who feel an interest, and believe in the popular institutions of our country. Yet, your committee feel assured, that if half the time, and feeling, and effort that are expended upon the questions of who shall have the offices were devoted to the great business of preparing the rising generations to occupy the soil, and sustain and advance the character of our state, incalculable good might be accomplished for the country and the human family. That among the questions which engage the attention of the public, --keep the mind in ferment,--give birth to party divisions and hostilities, too many lose sight of this most important of all public questions by engaging in the ever-exciting, and all-sorbing interest of party polities. These lands have been long neglected; thousands are growing into manhood every year, demanding education; the school fund belongs to them; it is the property of the children of the people; and it should neither be diverted from its legitimate purposes, or by improvident legislation rendered useless. On the contrary every means should be adopted to carry into effect the liberal and enlightened provisions of our constitution on the subject. A people cannot properly exercise their rights, and discharge their duties, without understanding them. In a republican government it is the duty of every citizen to have a knowledge of his rights and duties, and of the means or laws for securing the one and enforcing the other. And from this, we derive the obligation of the whole, to furnish the means of study, or in other words provide schools, where rights and duties shall be taught. Rights are natural and immutable; the result of God's universal and unchangeable laws for the government of his rational and accountable creatures. The only just end of government is to protect rights; and our government will not be just to the rising and coming generations if it does not take the proper course with this beneficent donation of the Federal Government to furnish this protection completely. If the New Testament be authority, the duties of all are imperative, to understand the doctrine of Republicanism, or the knowledge of self government; which is, to understand the rights, duties, and means of human happiness; and whatever is required of a rational being, by this sacred book, is within his capacity to attain. Education is to the republican body politic, what vital air is to the natural body, necessary to its very existence, without which it would sicken, droop and die. It is essentially important to the social state of man. The great hope for an increased prosperity of the state, lies in a well digested system of common school education. This requisite of sound policy being permanently secured, all other state questions fall into their proper places. When a people are educated, they will be governed by an enlightened self interest, which is the only security for the weal of a nation. All the {Begin deleted text}sub{End deleted text}-guards which a constitution may place round the state, cannot maintain its existence, if the whole people do not assure its continuance, and to do so, they must be properly educated. When we look at the means generally employed to lull and control the public mind, we are continually reminded of the urgent necessity of a system of common school education. The discussion of principles,--the operations of government, which should be made a sober business, is by the mere wantonness of the demagogne, degraded to the level of antics; and what should be fairly tested, is clouded in malignant representations; betraying political dishonesty, and the want of a system of popular education, for upon the latter, the former flourishes. This subject though overlooked more or less, in the din of ordinary public contestations, is the most momentous, which can engage the attention of the State. The power which gives life, and preserve, the vitality of liberty, and the forms and workings of a free polity, is the intelligence which is derived from education. All questions of party, of revenue, of currency, sink into comparative insignificance, when compared with the question of the proper security and disposition of this fund. If our children only have light, if they are brought up with their perceptions alive to the grandeur and beauty of the material world around them, if they are instructed in their duties to their fellows, to their country, and their God, we have no fears of violent popular changes or political commotions, dislocating or destroying the forms of society. Enlightened self-interest will then be the preserver of civilized polity.

Your committee believe that an immediate sale of the sixteenth sections is the wisest course to pursue, and report a bill for that purpose. The "sale must be a work of time, and therefore ought to be begun without delay," the proceeds to be consolidated into a common fund and hereafter placed under a common superintendence. Nothing great or useful has ever been accomplished without toil and sacrifice--the official duties of such superintendence will demand talent, devotedness, patience and a vast amount of hard work--a mind which is not animalized or money blinded; a mind willing to labor for the intellectual and moral good of the rising generations--because his principles and sympathies lead him that way, without the expectation of a high salary or official honor. He should possess the energy to execute, the sagacity to foresee difficulties, the courage to meet them and the perseverance to overcome them--the fact to remove prejudice and conciliate friendship--and the skill to baffle opposition and disarm hostility.

Your committee are of opinion that these lands, skillfully and honestly managed, will produce a fund of at least one million of dollars. Two paths are before us: if we enter one we may attract a while the attention of the world by a bustling show. If we take the other, we shall not win a momentary, but a lasting admiration. The foundation of State prosperity and individual happiness will be durable as time, strong as truth. Our political system will have no insidious venom preying upon the springs of life--no gangtene to be separated by the mutilation of the living parts--no convulsion to distort - no paralysis to prostrate.--but all the organs animalized by a healthy vitality, moving and acting together without jar or discord. Respectfully submitted,

JOHN WESTCOTT, Chairman.
{Begin deleted text}THOMAS K. LEONARD{End deleted text},
{Begin deleted text}JAMES E. FARRIOR,{End deleted text}
WM. D. WARD,
JOS. WOODRUFF.

Which was received, and a bill to be entitled an act to dispose of the sixteenth sections to create a common school fund and establish a permanent system of education reported by said committee was read the first time and ordered for to-morrow.

On motion of Mr Waterson seventy five copies of said bill were ordered to be printed....

[ An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera. American Memory -Library of Congress]

Labels: