local--the commonwealth, to its uttermost limits, shares in the
benefits they confer; and I am at a loss to understand upon what
principle of equity the State, which admits the principle of payment
on results, refuses to give a fair equivalent for these benefits; or
on what principle of justice the State, which admits the obligation
of sharing the duty of primary education with a locality, denies the
existence of that obligation when the higher education is in question.

To sum up: If the positive advancement of the peace, wealth, and the
intellectual and moral development of its members, are objects which
the Government, as the representative of the corporate authority of
society, may justly strive after, in fulfilment of its end--the good
of mankind; then it is clear that the Government may undertake to
educate the people. For education promotes peace by teaching men the
realities of life and the obligations which are involved in the very
existence of society; it promotes intellectual development, not only
by training the individual intellect, but by sifting out from the
masses of ordinary or inferior capacities, those who are competent
to increase the general welfare by occupying higher positions; and,
lastly, it promotes morality and refinement, by teaching men to
discipline themselves, and by leading them to see that the highest, as
it is the only permanent, content is to be attained, not by grovelling
in the rank and steaming valleys of sense, but by continual striving
towards those high peaks, where, resting in eternal calm, reason
discerns the undefined but bright ideal of the highest Good--"a cloud
by day, a pillar of fire by night."