Among the various social institutions of the United States, the means afforded for the education of the juvenile members of the community by her public free-school system, is that which is most likely to arrest the attention of foreigners. So far back in the history of the country as 1692, the council and deputies in General Assembly came to the conclusion, “that the cultivating of learning and good manners tends greatly to the benefit of mankind.” The immediate consequence of this wise consideration was the passing of an Act appointing men in each township in the colony to look after teachers and make good bargains with them, and see that they moved their schools around from one locality to another, so that the inhabitants of each and every township should have a fair chance of “cultivating learning and good manners.” This system was not exactly upon the plan of the peripatetics, where the young idea was taught to shoot beneath the sylvan shades of classic groves; but it had some relation to the hedge-school manner of teaching in Ireland less than sixty years ago. When it is known that the schoolmasters were engaged under the very prudent condition of being bargained with, which means their services were to be secured at as cheap a rate as possible, it may readily be supposed that their scholastic attainments and general fitness for the business of teaching were not likely to be looked upon as requisites of primary importance. Higgling in those good old times was the practice of the age ; whether men bought knee-buckles or engaged domestic servants, they were in duty bound to prig.