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instruction, its schools can at the same time be supplied with
Teachers of the highest merit, and yet all this can be done by
an annual appropriation no larger than those now made to sev-
eral Colleges in this State.
The plan on which this is clone, is as simple as it is efficient.
A stipulated number of students are educated in return for the
appropriation.
The larger portion pay for their education and thus form the
chief support of the institution, but all are appointed by the
State and are taken equally from the different parts of it, and the
institution is managed exclusively by officers appointed by the
State and in strict accordance with a code of regulations pre-
pared expressly for the purpose.
Those who receive their education from the State are required
to become Teachers in the Primary Schools for a stipulated time
and at the regular salary, and such, is the effect of the system
that a large portion of those who pay for their education, engage
in teaching from choice. The rest become Engineers, Machin-
ists, Manufacturers, Farmers and useful citizens in every depart-
ment; for system and science form the best preparation for any
pursuit. "Method, promptness and fidelity, are the great lead-
ing qualities which constitute the business man. The discipline
which induces them must be good."
The Teachers who are thus trained carry the system into
many of the Primary Schools and Academies, and they in turn
furnish other Teachers until the whole are supplied.
An additional advantage derived from this system is the mili-
tary instructions which it affords. It is the best, if not the only
mode, by which that degree of military knowledge indispensable
to the efficiency of the militia can be attained. The views of
the Executive on this subject accord with the experience of all
who have been connected either with the militia or the regular
Army.
The genius of our Institutions is opposed to a large standing
Army—but we have no right to count on a perpetual exemption
from invasion, and without a timely provision for such an emer-
gency our Territory may again be ravaged and the national hon-
or again be insulted on our soil.
It has been objected by some that this system has a tendency
to foster a disposition for war and conquest. Experience has
proved that the effect is precisely, opposite. The first principle
of Military discipline is obedience to law—and there is no system
so well calculated to correct the prevailing tendency to disregard
constituted authority, or to counteract the spirit of unlawful in-
terference with the rights of other nations in which those who
have been educated in true military principles will be the very
last to engage.
On the contrary, the application of this system which has been
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