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345.

language of our State Constitution. Much heretofore been done by the State Government for the improvement of the rising generation, but it is in the nature of this class of claims to increase with the increasing abilities of our people and government to sustain them. Perhaps an undue proportion of the bounties of the State, has heretofore been applied to the education of the male sex. I need not urge upon reflecting and intelligent minds, the importance as well as the justice, of advancing at an equal pace, the cultivation of intellectual power in the two sexes. The progress of our youth in knowledge and virtue, as they approach maturity of years, greatly depends on the mental and moral habits formed in early life under the influence of females, to whose care our children are ordinarily committed during that important period, when first impressions are imparted to the mind. As a matter of economy, merely, female education is deservedly entitled to the most liberal provisions. But we should be behind the spirit and the lights of the age, if it were not so regarded by us for its own sake alone. In both views I commend it to your favorable consideration. And in this connexion I will remark that the opinions expressed in my first communication to the Legislature of the last years, relative to the necessity of making further provision for the qualification of instructors of our common schools, have been confirmed by subsequent observation and reflection, and they are now adverted to for the purpose of again presenting the subject to the attention of the Legislature.