Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/388

 FREE SCHOOLS OF BOSTON. 3G3

One thousand minds ! thus rescued from ignorance, thus protected from vice. &quot;What a noble investment. Could any national bank yield a richer dividend ?

Such institutions cheat the prisons and the hangman. They throw a better guard round the liberties of a peo ple than the pomp of armies.

Establishments of the same ^nature, though varied by our different forms of government, are springing up in my own land. I bless God for them. Especially do the Free Schools of Boston illustrate a system both simple and sublime, diffusing a high degree of intelli gence among the lower classes, without being confined to them, and unfolding the secret of that predominance of the &quot; Athens of New England,&quot; and the &quot; Old Bay State,&quot; which they have so long and so nobly sus tained.

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