Nor is the picture of our situation less mournful, when we examine into the condition of young children in those states, which have done the most for education. Take New-York, for example, where, for forty years, the education of the people has been provided for by law, and where the very best school system in the world has recently gone into operation. It is the chief business of the Secretary of State, to take care of the common schools of the state, while, in every county, a deputy-superintendent, paid five hundred dollars each year for his services, devotes his whole time to the care of common schools. Every year these county superintendents report to the Secretary of State, in regard to the situation of the schools in the county under their care. It is from these reports of the superintendents of schools in New-York, that we are enabled to draw a picture of the condition of young children in common schools, that should send a chill of fear and alarm through our country. For if this is the condition of young children in that state which has excelled all others in a wise and liberal provision for the care of schools, what must be the condition of things in other states, where still less interest is felt in this great concern! The Secretary of State, in presenting the reports of the county superintendents to the Legislature of New-York, remarks thus: “The nakedness and deformity of the _great majority_ of schools in this state, the comfortless and dilapidated buildings, the unhung doors, broken sashes, absent panes, stilted benches, gaping walls, yawning roofs, and muddy and mouldering floors, are faithfully portrayed; and many of the self-styled teachers, who lash and dogmatize in these miserable tenements of humanity, are shown to be low, vulgar, obscene, intemperate, and utterly incompetent to teach anything good. Thousands of the young are repelled from improvement, and contract a durable horror for books, by ignorant, injudicious, and cruel modes of instruction. When the piteous moans and tears of the little pupils supplicate for exemption from the cold drudgery, or more pungent suffering of the school, let the humane parent be careful to ascertain the true cause of grief and lamentation.” To exhibit, more fully, the sufferings of little children at school, the following is abridged from these reports: _Sufferings of Little Children from Bad Schoolhouses._