“In a similar manner did our public school lose its state authority. As I have told you, the state itself, in all its functions, was gradually weakened, and lost its paternalism with every step of intellectual advance and personal liberty. But the disappearance of the public school was more rapid than the disappearance of the state in some other direction. Men gradually withdrew from the old, narrow, despotic school, the same as they had withdrawn from the old, narrow, cruel church. As the intellectual sun of freedom, kindness and prosperity rose and shed his congenial rays on our progressive Mars, the chains of superstition, cruelty and slavery fell off one by one; and the same tendency is already discernible with you. I find that many of your foremost thinkers and most impartial judges feel the narrowness and stagnation of your public school and your system of education. They favor the abolition of state schools and the substitution of private institutions in which there is a wide range of liberty, so that every teacher can teach what he desires, and every child can go where it desires. In such a keen, free field of competition every teacher and school must stand or fall by their own merit, and the survival of the fittest will soon crowd out all others. “The public school, before its disappearance, assumed different forms. The teachers grew in kindness and ability. The days were shortened. I mean the school day in the compulsory school-room. The weeks and years were also gradually shortened. The child became a freer agent in a more natural position. In the course of time the people of the cities and towns erected and supported spacious public buildings in the most suitable parts of their cities and towns. These buildings were intended for enjoyment and also for the acquisition of useful information, not for the _man_ only, like most of your public buildings now are, except the churches, but for the wife and child also. Every man, woman and child who wished to enjoy a social intercourse for a few hours, either during the day or evening, could always find a fit place in these public buildings.