56

engaged and the Public Schools be made equal to the best
private Schools in the State.

COST OF COURTS, JAILS AND ALMS HOUSES, COMPARED WITH

THE COST OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS DURINS THE YEAR ENDINGS

JUNE 30TH, 1866.

Ignorance and Crime go hand in hand. The antidote to
such vice as crowds our Jails, is a sound moral and mental
training. The Statistics of Penitentiaries, Jails, Houses of
Refuge and Alms Houses, together with the Asylums wkere
the profligate and degraded are cared for, prove that crime
and immorality are the result of neglected education. When
proper instruction is not provided for children, the seeds of
vice are sown which in adult years produce an abundant har-
vest of iniquity. Ignorance begets hardness of heart as well
as dullness of intellect. There is neither ability to compre-
hend nor sensibility to feel the duties which pertain to man-
hood, and consequently society suffers. It will be an inter-
esting subject of investigation to examine the statistical
relation which ignorance bears to crime in our own State.
The statistics of civilization furnish ample evidence that the
class of crimes consequent upon neglected moral education is
lessened in those States which provide for the instruction of
the whole people. An effort will be made before the close of
another year to present practical information on this topics

Attention is now directed to the following table showing
the amounts paid in Baltimore City and each County For
Courts, Jails and Alms houses, taken from the official state-
ments of City and County Commissioners. The sum to't£l"»f
more than one million dollars might be largely increased by
the amounts expended for private and denominational $<jy-
lums of various grades and contributed for the supportrof the
destitute. If education is the antidote for crime and pau-
perism, then it may be asserted that the heavy taxes paid for
the support of Courts and Jails will diminish as the moral
and intellectual training of a community advances.

The money paid for Public Schools in Baltimore City and
the Counties is placed in parallel column with the cost of
Courts, &c., that the public may sec which is the more
expensive, to educate children in the ways of industry and
virtue, or to detect and punish crime. Multiply good Schools,
and taxes to support paupers will diminish. Discontinue
Schools and taxes to prevent and punish crime will increase.
When discussing the cost of Schools let those who complain
look at the cost of Courts. Let them remember that,the
expense of educating each child attending public Schcool,
during the last year was only six dollars, while the expense
of a single criminal trial often reaches one thousand dollars