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353 ...for those who would never enter the Common Schools. But all that can be said of them is, that they have met the evil they were intended to remedy, to some small extent. At Chicago I was told by the able Superintendent of the City Schools that there were 20,000 children in that city who frequented no school. And this is a growing evil in all the Great Cities of the Union. Sullivan The Americans then very wisely (in fact they could do nothing better, or nothing else) have established, in the country & in the city, common school for their own children. What we are called upon to do is a totally different thing; & unclear I insist upon as another great distinction between what they done, & we are doing in this matter. We have to establish schools for other people's children. With them those who pay for the school profit by it. With us those who will pay for the school will never derive any advantage from it. The point for us to settle is, how shall Farmers & Landlords be made to tax themselves for the education of labourers' children;& how shall the householders, & professional men, & tradesmen of a town be made to tax themselves for the schooling of the children of artisans & operatives. The Americans may be left to manage the business themselves, for it is their own affair. But we cannot: with us the law must be imperative, not permissive, & constant supervision will be needed;& to secure this right of supervision it will probably be found necessary that the State should itself contribute largely towards the maintenance of the School.