Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/23

Rh Oregon. For the war money we paid in forty-two years, we could have had more than 10,000 miles of railroad, and, with dividends at seven per cent., a yearly income of $21,210,000. For military and naval affairs, in eight years, from 1835 to 1843, we paid $163,336,717. This alone would have made 5444 miles of railroad, and would produce, at seven per cent., an annual income of $11,433,569-19. In Boston there are nineteen public grammar-schools, a Latin and English High school. The buildings for these schools, twenty in number, have cost $653,208. There are also 135 primary schools, in as many houses or rooms. I know not their value, as I think they are not all owned by the city. But suppose them to be worth $150,000, then all the school-houses of this city have cost $803,208. The cost of these 156 schools for this year is estimated at $172,000. The number of scholars in them is $16,479. Harvard University, the most expensive college in America, costs about $46,000 a year. Now the ship "Ohio," lyiiig here in our harbour, has cost $834,845, and we pay for it each year $220,000 more. That is, it has cost $31,637 more than these 155 school-houses of this city, and costs every year $2000 more than Harvard University, and all the public schools of Boston! The military academy at West Point contains two hundred and thirty-six cadets; the appropriation for it last year was $138,000, a sum greater, I think, than the cost of all the colleges in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts, with their 1445 students.

The navy-yard at Charlestown, with its ordnance, stores, &c., cost $4,741,000. The cost of the 78 churches in Boston is $3,246,500; the whole property of Harvard University is $703,175; the 155 school-houses of Boston are worth $803,208; in all, $4,752,883. Thus the navy- yard at Charlestown has cost almost as much as the 78 churches and the 155 school-houses of Boston, with Harvard College, its halls, libraries, all its wealth, thrown in. Yet what does it teach? Our country is singularly destitute of public libraries. You must go across the ocean to read the history of the Church or State; all the public libraries in America cannot furnish the books referred to in Gibbon's "Rome," or