FREE SCHOOLS OF BOSTON. 3G3

One thousand minds ! thus rescued from ignorance, thus protected from vice. "What a noble investment. Could any national bank yield a richer dividend ?

Such institutions cheat the prisons and the hangman. They throw a better guard round the liberties of a peo ple than the pomp of armies.

Establishments of the same ^nature, though varied by our different forms of government, are springing up in my own land. I bless God for them. Especially do the Free Schools of Boston illustrate a system both simple and sublime, diffusing a high degree of intelli gence among the lower classes, without being confined to them, and unfolding the secret of that predominance of the " Athens of New England," and the " Old Bay State," which they have so long and so nobly sus tained.

�� �