.MTU0MA.MTU1NDg

274 [Governor's Message] their voluntary suffrages, to perform for their benefit certain duties in a manner pointed out by the Constitution having performed these duties our agency will expire our powers cease and public opinion will decide upon our public conduct. On that opinion depends not merely who shall administer government, but the form and even the very existence of government itself. To perpetrate in this free country that form of government which our ancestors established with great toil and unexampled wisdom, must be the ardent wish of every enlightened philanthropist To secure to the people the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty and there just rights a knowledge of those rights, of their value and importance to themselves and their posterity is indispensably necessary. Nor should this knowledge be confined to a few; the more universal its diffusion the greater the security. It may justly be considered the pride of our State that here no man, however poor, is necessarily destitute of that volume, which is the best and purest fountain of moral instruction for himself and family, no youth, however indigent but is provided with a school at the public expense at which he may obtain such an education as will enable him to transact the usual business of life, and become acquainted with his rights and duties as a citizen. Education, being therefore, within the reach of every one and provided at the public expense that public have a claim upon each individual to share its advantages. Parents owe it to the community to afford the youth under their care, every possible opportunity for moral and literary improvement, inasmuch as it will enable