As the central Government extended its sway over the Territories there was a uniform system, when assigning land for public objects to railway companies, of retaining for the School Fund a portion of the land in each Territory, as it was settled and admitted as such, under the control of the central Government. In the States Constitutions creating Sovereign States, there are provisions inserted, varying very little in language and not at all in spirit, which render it compulsory on the Legislature of each State to maintain public schools free to all the children of the people residing within its borders. Another principle, of universal application, provided that all schools under public control should be free from sectarian or denominational teaching, in the schools or in the books used for educational purposes. With such safeguards for the extension of education, it is depressing to find that, in certain districts at all events, crime and immorality prevail in the United States as extensively as in the benighted kingdoms of the Continent of Europe. But the most serious consideration in connection with the system of common schools in America, is the fact that serious doubts are intruding themselves respecting the success of it. In a recent official report it was stated that whereas the children who ought to go to school numbered about fourteen and a half millions, the average attendance was not more than five millions. But, assuming that all the children went to school, there are people who declare that the education given under the National system is by no means satisfactory. Mr. R. G. White affirms that the system is a failure; and high authorities assert that "any comparison between the results obtained in the public schools of New York, Cincinnati, and Boston, with those of such public grammar schools of England, as Bedford, Manchester, and the City of London, is simply ridiculous." The teachers are continually shifting, and when the teachers, as they do in this land of liberty, go away, the schools are deserted, the constant services of a staff cannot be retained unless there is very considerable increase in the rate of payment now made to the male and female teachers. None of these in any State have, I think, more than about 9_l._ per month. Mr. White says that "the mass of the pupils of the public schools are unable to read intelligently, to spell correctly, to write legibly, to describe the geography of their own country, or do anything that reasonably well educated children do with ease; and they cannot write a simple letter, they cannot do readily a simple sum in practical arithmetic, they cannot tell the meaning of any but the commonest of words they read and spell so ill. They can give rules glibly, they can recite from memory, they have some dry knowledge of the various ologies and osophies, they can, some of them, read a little French or German with very bad accent; but, as to all real education, they are as helpless and as