1. INCORPORATION FOR BAPTIST CHURCH TRUSTEES REFUSED.

A Bill to incorporate the Trustces of the Baptist Church in the Town of Washington:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That Jeremiah Martin, Thomas D. Mason, Jonathan Haven, Henry Clark and Jeremiah Ligget, and their successors be and they are hereby constituted and declared to be a body politic and corporate, to be called and known by the name and style of the Trustees of the Washington Baptist Church, and they are hereby vested with all the powers and authorities which are given to religious societies or congregations of every denomination and also by another act passed in the year 1809, entitled an Act to amend an act passed in the year 1796, entitled an act to secure property to religious societies or congregations of every denomination, any law to the contrary notwithstanding.

Engrossed and Examined.

In House of Commons Dec. 21, 1821: Read and indefinitely postponed.

-Unpublished Documents, 1821-22.

1822

1. GOV. HOLMES' MESSAGE ON EDUCATION.

2. ASSEMBLY COMMITTEES ON EDUCATION.

3. PROPOSED SUBSIDY FOR ACADEMIES.

4. TEACHERS AND STUDENTS MUST PERFORM PUBLIC DUTIES

5. APPROPRIATION OF PUBLIC LANDS FOR EDUCATION.

6. WORK OF RALEIGH FEMALE BENEVOLENT SOCIETY.

1. GOV. GABRIEL HOLMES' MESSAGE ON EDUCATION.

agriculture much

The learned professions crowded

I would mention one defect which appears to me to Education in exist generally in the education of our young men of lib- neglected. eral advantages: they know little or nothing of agriculture and are not taught to hold it in proper estimation. The consequence is that they nearly all devote themselves to the learned professions, and leave the calling of husbandry, equally as respectable and more useful, to those whom they consider as their inferiors. By this defect and these consequent mistaken notions, we lose the talents and influence of many a young man, who lags and withers in one of the professions, when he might be an ornament and guide in the quiet walks of agriculture, and constitute one of that most excellent and useful class of society, good citizens. It is truly melancholy to witness the crowd and drones that hang upon the rear of the learned professions, with incompetents burthens to themselves and burthens to society, because they are useless; and many of them—perhaps I might say a large majority-men of talents, but unhappily misapplied. I trust, if they are beyond the saving influence of the Legislature, that you have it still in your power to prevent this accumulation, and to diffuse the talents of our state into more extensive usefulness. Should the Legislature ever practically unite in the important truth, that it is of the last moment to the stability and security of subject should be our republican institutions, that all kinds of useful knowl- the university. edge should be extended to our youth, the poorest as well as the richest, it is to be hoped that they will not overlook the article of agriculture; and in the present flourishing state of our University, when its wealth has received such an addition of western lands, its number of students such an increase, its buildings receiving such improvement and extension, and its able faculty and trustees are so zeealous and indefatigable in raising its reputation, and extending the sphere of its usefulness, it appears to be an auspicious

Any system of

education should

not neglect agriculture, which

introduced into

period to introduce the subject of agriculture within its walls, and lend it your aid? Were you even to devote a considerable sum of money to this purpose, how manifold would be the interest which the people would receive in its advantages? Young men of liberal education would leave our University with proper ideas of the dignity and usefulness of agricultural avocations, and with much useful knowledge relating thereto. They would go into the different parts of the state, and devote themselves to agriculture, and associate into societies with men of more limited opportunities where their knowledge and influence would be widely diffused, and give a life and vigor to agricul ture, of which one can easily form some conception. But I would not have you suppose that this subject is altogether neglected in our University. We have there a protaught in univer- fessorship of chemistry and mineralogy, which bear an intimate relation to agriculture, and it gives me much pleasure to state, that I have been informed that the gentleman who has charge of that department of instruction, takes a lively interest in the improvement of the agriculture of the country, and devotes a part of his course of lectures to that subject alone, and loses no opportunity of imparting to his pupils every article of knowledge which will be of service in the business of life. I am happy that I have it in my power to make known the fact, that our University is not confined to those studies which, though of the highest importance in a liberal education, have no immediate relation to the concerns of life. * * *

Chemistry and mineralogy already

sity, subjects intimately connected with agriculture.

Every kind of useful learning ought to be encouraged.

With regard to education, although we have been considering an important part of it, you are by no means to stop here. Our constitution has made it your duty to encourage and promote every kind of useful learning. Its wise and patriotic framers, who were about to burst from the thralldom of oppression, and who were sensible of the enslaving influence of ignorance, ordained it to be their

soon to bequeath the inestimable legacy of freedom, to diffuse learning among the people-and they, no doubt. looked forward, in pleasing contemplation, to the period when their posterity should have schools and academies erected among them; when knowledge, at least of the more ordinary and indispensable kind, should be within the reach of the child of the poorest citizen-when all useful knowledge should be duly encouraged and promoted—the people acquainted with their rights, sensible of their national blessings, and therefore determined to perpetuate their institutions; and to keep the soil which their fathers had purchased with their blood and treasure, the land of freedom and the asylum of the oppressed. I fear, gentlemen, if those venerable fathers were to rise from their to be done to put tombs, they would reproach us with supineness and neg- the reach of all. lect, and would not listen to our plea of want of power. We shall never know what power we have until we exert it; and it holds in political as well as in physical strength, that it is increased by exercise. To all these subjects then, which appear to me, I am sure, in far more important light than my limits or language will allow me to express, let us give heed, and timely heed. Let us do something, however little, it may prove in time as a grain of mus tard seed.

-House Journal, 1822.

Something ought

education within