"The first principles of the system recommended in this report with regard to common schools, schools for the education of the poorer classes, and for the education of teachers (or the normal schools) made their appearance almost simultaneously in Great Britain and on the Continent, as appears by the voluminous reports of Lord Brougham ... and by Mr. Dick's very able and splendid report upon the common schools ... of Scotland, and by M. Cousin's reports of the schools in Prussia and Germany, and Bulver's observations upon education as a prevention of crime in France.... The glimmering of this beacon light was soon seen across the ocean, and lighted up a similar flame in the United Slates. Commissioner after commissioner was sent to Scotland and to England by the authority of their State Legislatures to light their lamps at the fountain of science, that the whole continent of America might be ignited by the flame." Dr. Duncombe's observations in regard to the state of education in the United States are interesting, as by contrast they illustrate the remarkable progress made in that country during the last half century in the matter of public education. He says:-- "In the United States, where they devote much time and expense towards the promotion of literature, they are equally destitute of a system of national education with ourselves: and although by their greater exertion to import the improvements made in Great Britain and on the Continent, and their numerous attempts at systematizing these modern modes of education ... they have placed themselves in advance of us in their common school system. Yet, after all, their schools seemed to me to be good schools on bad or imperfect systems; they seem groping in the dark, no instruction in the past to guide the future, no beacon light, no council of wise men to guide them, more than we have, upon the subject of common schools. Our schools want in character, they want respectability, they want permanency in their character and in their support.... It should be so arranged that all the inhabitants should contribute something towards the [maintainance of the school fund], and all those who are benefited directly by it should pay, in proportion to such benefit, a small sum, but quite enough to interest them in the prudent expenditure of their share of the school moneys." The objection to a liberal education being too freely given for the benefit of the learned professions seems to have been urged even in these days. Dr. Duncombe answers it in the following language:--