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Virginia? Simply because Connecticut and Massachusetts and
New Jersey and Virginia have fostered their noble seats of learn-
ing, until they respect themselves because of them, and thus
they not only retain their own sons, but are ever enticing the
sons of strangers. We can scarcely open a College catalogue
from abroad, without seeing the names of Maryland's sons in
their pagesi We may search in vain for the name of any of
Virginia's sons. Let Maryland but foster her own School,
planted on her own native soil at her own Capital, and we shall
soon find it as true of her as of her sister States, that her chil-
dren wilt stay at home when they have a great school of their
own to go to.
To foster liberally her own School, can be proved to be the
most decided economy. An estimate has been made by gentle-
men perfectly competent to do so, that a quarter of a million of
dollars are carried out of the State annually lor the purpose of
educating her sons abroad. The interest on this amount is one-
third more than the annuity we ask for from the State. If we
have to build up a great university on our own soil we should
certainly retain our own children at home, but we should do more.
Many of the children of other States, especially Southern States,
would be invited among us, and thus help to swell largely the
credit side of the account with the State. So that in this view
alone our plan is highly economical. But there are other views
of a similar kind. One hundred thousand dollars is now ap-
propriated by the State and expended annually for educational
purposes, over and above the annual tax levied in the counties
and the city of Baltimore, for similar purposes. What that
amount is in, their several localities the representatives from the
various quarters of the State, have the best means of knowing,
we only know that in the city of Annapolis, the School is two
per cent, higher than the State tax. The plan we commend
would render efficient the application of this vast amount of
money, and thus serve the purpose of the highest practical
economy. Improvement in the general education of the State,
would diminish public expenses in various ways.
The amount which our plan asks annually of the State would
hardly equal the interest of that which she would have to pay in
outlay, in buildings, apparatus and other appurtenances, as a
preparation for the founding of such an institution elsewhere.
The immediate responsibility of the College to, and depen-
dance upon, the Legislature, taken in connexion with the facts,
that it is under the immediate eye of the State representatives,
and that the Governor of the State, Judges of the Court of Ap-
peals, President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of
Delegates, are ex-officio members of the Board of Visitors and
Governors of the institution, would secure to the State the fullest
protection of her interests and the strongest guarantee of her
rights.
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