Excerpt from Report to the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey In submitting the annual report as required by law, respecting the condition and progress of public education, I am happy that statistics bear me testimony in the statement, that the public schools - the nurseries of the future citizens of the commonwealth - have rendered an efficient service during the past year. Although frequent and nu paralleled demands have been made upon the resources of the State although large numbers of our citizens have been called from the field and workshop to act a part in the fearful drama of war - thus withdrawing from the State its essential element of prosperity - still, in the face of these embarrassments, our institutions of learning, both public and private have never been more liberally patronised, nor more generally prosperous. Notwithstanding the unusual taxation, the high prices of the necessaries of life, and the depressing influences consequent upon civil warfare, the masses have evinced, to a degree unnoticeable before, an unshaken belief in the school - the common school - as an indispensable auxiliary to the diffusion of that sound and useful knowledge among the people, which, used as a virtue and power, triumphs over the elements, and, subservient to the purposes of Providence in modifying the curse pronounced against the race, lifts the burden of labor from the shoulders of man, and causes na tures forces to become his servant. 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.