Asks that some general and effective plan of education be adopted. Schools can not flourish if left to individual effort alone. 1. GOV. TURNER'S MESSAGE ON EDUCATION. But more especially, let me again recommend to the serious consideration of the General Assembly the proper education of the youth of the State, upon some plan that shall be general and effective, whether by affording some uniform support to one or more well regulated school or schools in every county in the State, after the example of our sister State South Carolina, or in some other adequate mode, is submitted to your wisdom. It is evident that the situation of our State in this respect calls for legislative aid; for though it must have given pleasure to every friend of science and good government, to observe of late years schools springing up in many parts of our country, yet it must also have pained him to see that when left to the support of individual patriotism alone, they have too frequently languished and sunk for want of competent patronage and well-qualified Teachers. Under the protection of government, it is presumed, those fundamental institutions in which our youth would not only be taught the elements of useful knowledge but the principles of virtue, and on which perhaps depend the future prosperity, happiness and freedom of the State, would be completely upheld. -From Message to Assembly, 1805, House Journal. Infinitely impor tant that the peo 1. GOV. NATHANIEL ALEXANDER'S MESSAGE ON EDUCATION. Permit me, gentlemen, to call your attention generally ple be enlightened. to those objects, the proper management of which is calculated to secure our liberities, our personal happiness, and the wealth and respectability of the State. On the subject of education, little can be said which has not been said already by my predecessor. But I will take the liberty to observe, that in a government constituted as ours, where the people are everything, where they are the fountain of all power, it becomes infinitely important that they be sufficiently enlightened to realize their interests, and to comprehend the best means of advancing them. Indeed, it may be affirmed with truth, that unless they be informed the duration of their liberties will be precarious, their enemies will seduce them from the pursuit of their true interests, or their own prejudices lead them into fatal dangers. -House Journal, 1806. |