Literary Cadet And Rhode Island Statesman

New School House.--We learn, with much satisfaction, that a new public school house is projected, and that one will probably be erected, in the course of the summer, in the vicinity of Point Pleasant, one of the most delightful sections of the town. We are glad to find, that the public eye has recently been directed to the importance of establishing these nurseries of learning, Free Schools, and that the success that has thus far attended these modest seminaries of education, has proven their utility and importance to a flourishing and free people. The third and fourth district schools managed by Doctor Pettis and Mr. Hartshorn, are too fully attended; and it is essential that some mode be devised, to render them less crowded, that the instructors may be enabled to do justice to themselves and to their pupils. This can be done by erecting a suitable building in a proper situation, and drawing to it a proportion of the scholars who now attend the third and fourth district schools, and crowd them even to excess. As the project of erecting a new School House has been conceived, we cannot but hope it will be carried into execution; and if it is, we are certain that the public will realize advantages which all must be enabled to appreciate: and which will be felt and acknowledged by the community at large.

We cannot contemplate the subject of free schools without indulging in feelings which are elicited by the occasion; and they lead us to boast with sensations of honest pride, and to declare, that whilst the State has done nothing for the establishment of schools where the indigent and wealthy can equally repair, and quaff at their Castilian founts, Providence has done every thing, and has raised numerous seminaries, where the young idea has been taught to shoot, and where the mind, heretofore labouring under the ills and darkness of ignorance, has been snatched from obscurity, and received the rich tints and ornaments of education.

Nobler institutions than our Common Free Schools, never existed ; and we trust that the day is not far distant, when through the munificence of the State, their bells will chime throughout our little Commonwealth; and that thousands, who are now growing up in a state of ignorance and darkness, will be enlightened by them, and taught the inestimable value of even a common education. It is lamentable, and it is disgraceful to the State, that a subject of such vital importance to the people should be neglected; and though those who are now in power, are opposed to the establishment of free schools, we hope the day will arrive when they may be ousted and others, more liberal and rational having been called to fill their places ; the free school system will triumph over the hostility or its enemies.

That a subject, so magnificent in its contemplation and so important in its operations, should be so long neglected, is to us, passing strange. Why it should be neglected we cannot discern, when all, even the most ignorant, stupid, and parsimonious, will readily concur in the assertion that a people can never be free and independent, till they are enlightened and elevated.

At the next town meeting the subject of establishing a new School House will be acted upon by the freemen, and it is to be hoped that no one will be found at the polls, prepared to oppose an undertaking, which will redound so highly to the honor and advantage of a whole community