1858.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 391

dollars—so as to enable the Trustees to place the institution
upon a more substantial basis of prosperity, by the improve-
ment of their academy building, by the enlargement of their
accommodations for pupils, by the employment of a sufficient
number of competent instructors and teachers, by additions to
their chemical and philosophical apparatus, and by other ob-
vious means which will tend to the enlarged usefulness of the
institution—and, in consideration of such annual 'donation,
the Trustees guarantee to the State to furnish gratuitous in-
struction, in all the departments of study, to eight needy and
worthy pupils. Such a donation would at once enable the
Trustees to carry on their work prosperously, and with great
advantage, alike to the community and the State. And, if
the history of the past can afford any guarantee for wise and
judicious management for the future, the Trustees can confi-
dently appeal to that history, and can point to the present
position of their academy as the result of their past manage-
ment. Having accomplished so much, with their few and
feeble resources, they ask now, at the hands of the Legisla-
ture, a donation more proportionate to their claims, and more
adequate to the wants and aims of the institution. This in-
stitution is not of a mere local and sectional character. It
has long ago ceased to be so. Its advantages are, and have
been for years, most largely shared by other counties of the
State; and not unfrequently it numbers among its pupils,
students from other States. Your memorialists are persuaded
that if their present appeal for a larger donation be liberally
responded to by your Honorable body, these advantages will
. be much more sought and secured.

It is now universally conceded and felt that the time has
fully come, when the most enlarged and liberal provisions
must be made for the education and moral training of the
youth of the land. The very safety and perpetuity of our
institutions, as a free, enlightened and Christian people, de-
mand it. And while our primary and common schools are
most necessary and efficient to this end, it is respectfully sub-
mitted, by your memorialists, that our higher academies,
from their position and influence, and from the tone and
character which, more or less, they give to the lower schools,
and from the fact that their greater educational advantages
must be sought by a large proportion of the community, have
peculiar and most urgent claims upon the patronage of the
State. Your memorialists are deeply and honestly persuaded
that no academy in this State presents juster and fuller claims
for a large and liberal donation than the Brookville Academy;
and they accordingly pray that the Brookville institution may
be placed upon an equal footing with those academies which
are already receiving from the State, the amount of donation
herein asked for. Satisfied, as your memorialists are, that