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with new school houses. We passed a series of resolutions
setting forth this great necessity, and inviting the people of
each District to invest their private capital in building school
houses after the plan prescribed, and under the supervision
of the Building Committee, as provided by the By-Laws,
pledging the Board to rent said houses at a rent of 6 per
cent, on the cost of building, and to purchase the buildings
at cost, as fast as we have the means of doing so. We re-
solved, also, not to keep the schools open, as Public Schools;
more than three terms the present year. By this means we
hope to save a fund for building purposes. We further re-
solved to appropriate eight thousand dollars, out of any
funds in the treasury, as a School House Fund, for this year.
It ia very questionable whether we can do this consistently,
with carrying on the schools three terms. On the above plan
we hare about three new school houses building by the
citizens, and several others talked of. Our enterprising
friends, of Potatoe Neck, have prosecuted to completion
their first class Academy building; and, though a Commit-
tee of the Trustees have invited our co-operation in organiz-
ing their school, by appointing one or more teachers, as yet,
they have not, so far as I am informed, succeeded in select-
ing a suitable teacher for Principal. The delay has been oc-
casioned, no doubt, by a misdirection of their efforts.

The people of our County are clamorous for Public Schools
and school houses. They even go so far as to speak in strong
language of complaint of our Board, because we do not build
new school houses at once—they are impatient if the schools
are not kept going all the year. This is the fact, notwith-
standing they are assured, and know, that we have not the
necessary means at our command. The inference from all
this is plain; the people consider that they have the right
to be educated by the State, not only to be educated, but well
and liberally educated. They argue that it is the duty of the
State to supply the means of educating her people—means
commensurate with their rights. With, the people it is a
question of right, on the one hand, and of duty on the
other. We believe that the people of Maryland hold this
view of this great question of public education, and that
they would not only sustain the system, but would have the
Legislature, through their respective delegates, act up to the
full measure of this great State duty. Why compromise a
matter of plain duty by half-way measures ? Why not per-
form her whole duty to her people ? This, too, is the view
that the Political Economist, with a comprehensive view of
the whole interest of the State, in all its surroundings, would
take of this question. He knows, full well—science has de-
monstrated the fact—that there is no element of State pros-
perity equal to an educated people. On the other hand, there
is no element 86 expensive and dangerous as an ignorant and