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360

correct management and progressive improvement of these institutions we cannot feel to anxious, since on education depends so much of our happiness, and the security of our free governments

The Colleges at Brunswick and Waterville have heretofore partaken largely of public munificence. Their usefulness and prosperity have been promoted and sustained by the annual donations which have been granted to them, agreeably to that provision of the constitution, which imperatively makes it the duty of the legislature to encourage and suitably to endow from time to time, as the circumstances of the people may authorize, all academies, colleges and seminaries of learning within the State. That this public bounty has not been injudiciously bestowed, or misapplied, is to be inferred from the flourishing condition of these colleges, the ability and diligence of their several professors, and the increasing number of their students, a great proportion of whom are enabled to obtain their instruction gratuitously by the aid afforded to them from the grant of the State. The time limited in the acts providing for these annual donations well expire during the present year. And the land of these institutions being at present unproductive they must necessarily rely for some years to come, upon the aid of the government, or their usefulness and prosperity will be much impaired, if not totally destroyed. I am sensible that the importance of continuing to cherish our seminaries of learning, those institutions devoted to the ennobling pursuits of literature and science, founded and endowed exclusively for the purpose of disseminating the inestimable benefits of a good education and correct principles among the rising generation, can receive no additional weight from any arguments or remarks in my power to make. I respectfully recommended the whole subject to your consideration, with confidence that it will receive such direction, as shall render these institutions responsible to the legislative and the people for the people for the faithful employment of the Counties of the government, and shall best comport with the honor and lasting interests of the State.