Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...action of the city or town, has given to it. Thus it is seen that our public schools answer to the requirement already stated. They are established by the public, supported chiefly or entirely by the public, controlled by the public, and accessible to the public upon terms of equality, without special charge for tuition. Nor is the public character of a school changed by the fact that private citizens may have contributed to its maintenance, if such contributors do not assume to stand in the relation of founders. It is well understood that the beneficial founder of a school is he who makes the first gift or bequest to it, and the legal founder is the government which grants a charter, or in any way confers upon it a corporate existence. If a town establish a high school, as in Bernardston to-day, and accept a gift or bequest, the character of the school is not changed thereby. Mr. Powers did not attempt to establish a new school. He gave the income of ten thousand dollars for the aid of schools then existing, and for the aid of a school whose existence was already contemplated by the laws of the state. No change has been wrought in your institutions; they are still public,