Excerpt from Report of the Joint Committee of the Two Houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature, on the Subject of a System of General Education: Together With the Bill Reported by Said Committee, and an Appendix Containing Sundry Communications on the Subject of Common Schools In Pennsylvania, our right of suffrage is as broad as possible. A A citizen; who pays a tax of a few cents only, can go to the election, [with power equal to. Him who contributes many hundred d';ollars and by his vote, diiect the public weal, with the same authority as the richest citizen. It becomes necessary, therefore, to give the man of humble means, an opportunity of understanding the political ade yantages in which he so largely shares. Our institutions, ' says a: great statesman, are neither designed for, nor suited to a nation of ignorant paupers. To be free, the people must be intelligently freer The number of voters in Pennsylvania, unable to read, have been computed, from data in other states, at one hundred thousand; and two thousand five hundred, grow up to be voters annually, who are equally ignorant. In a republican government, 110 voter should 'be without the rudiments of learning for aside from political considera tions, education purifies the morals thropists, who visit our jails, have the convicts are unable to read. It instruction to our youth, A radical defect in our the public aid now given, poor. Aware of this. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.