for the maintenance, and, in some qualified degree, for the education of his infant children, he is entitled to the custody of their persons, and to the value of their labour and services. There can be no doubt, that this right in the father is perfect while the child is under the age of fourteen years. But as the father's guardianship by nature continues until the child has arrived to full age, and as he is entitled by statute to constitute a testamentary guardian of the person and estate of his children until the age of twenty-one, the inference would the inference would seem to be, that he was, in contemplation of law, entitled to the custody of the persons, and to the value of the services and labour of his children, during their minority. This is a principle assumed by the elementary writers; and the cases of Day v. Everett, and Gale v. Parrott, are to the same effect, and take the principle to be unquestionable; though, in the latter case, it was observed, that if the minor was eloigned from the parent, he might, of necessity, be entitled to receive the fruits of his own labour, and that it would require only slight circumstances to enable the court to infer the parent's consent to the son's receipt and enjoyment of his own wages. The father, says Blackstone, has the benefit of his children's labour while they live with him, and are maintained by him, and this is no more than he is entitled to from his apprentices or ser

vants.

The father may obtain the custody of his children by the writ of habeas corpus, when they are improperly detained from him ;d but the courts, both of law and equity, will investigate the circumstances, and act according to sound discretion, and will not always, and of course, interfere upon habeas corpus, and take a child, though under fourteen years of age, from the possession of a third person, and deliver it over to the father against the will of

a 1 Black's Com. 453. Reeves Domestic Relations, 290.

b7 Mass. Rep. 145.

c 1 N. H. Rep. 28.

d The King v. De Manneville, 5 East, 221.

the child. They will even control the right of the father to the possession and education of his child, when the nature of the case appears to warrant it." The father may also maintain trespass for a tort to an infant child, provided he can show a loss of service, for that is the gist of the action by the father,b

The duty of educating children in a manner suitable to their station and calling, is another branch of parental duty, of imperfect obligation generally in the eye of the municipal law, but of very great importance to the welfare of the state. Without some preparation made in youth for the sequel of life, children of all conditions would probably become idle and vicious when they grow up, either from the want of good habits, and the means of subsistence, or from want of rational and useful occupation. A parent who sends his son into the world uneducated, and without skill in any art or science, does a great injury to mankind, as well as to his own family, for he defrauds the community of a useful citizen, and bequeaths to it a nuisance. This parental duty is strongly and persuasively inculcated by the writers on natural law. Solon was so deeply impressed with the force of the obligation, that he even excused the children of Athens from maintaining their parents, if they had neglected to train them up to some art or profession.d Several of the states of antiquity were too solicitous to form their youth for the various duties of civil life, to entrust their education solely to the parent. Public institu

a Archer's case, 1 Lord Raym, 673. Rex v. Smith, Str. 982. Rex v. Delaval, 3 Burr, 1434. Commonwealth v Addicks, 5 Binney, 520. The case of M'Dowles, 8 Johns. Rep. 328. Commonwealth v. Nutt, .1 Brown's Penn. Rep. 143. Creuzer v. Hunter, 2 Cox's Cases, 242. De Manneville v. D Manneville, 10 Vesey, 52.

b Hall v. Hallander, 4 Barn. & Cress 660.

e Pufendorf, b. 4. c. 11. s. 5.

225.

d. Plutarch's Life of Solon,

Paley's Moral Philosophy, p. 224,

tions were formed in Persia, Crete, and Lacedæmon, to regulate and promote the education of children, in things cal culated to render them useful citizens, and to adapt their minds and manners to the genius of the government. Great pains have been taken, and munificent and noble provision made, in this country, to diffuse the means of knowledge, and to render ordinary instruction accessible to all. Several of the statesa have made the maintenance of public schools an article in their constitutions. In the New-Eng land states, each town and parish are obliged, by law, to maintain an English school a considerable portion of the year, and the school is under the superintendence of the public authority, and the poorest children in the country have access to these schools. The state of Connecticut has a large and growing school fund, economically and wisely managed, and appropriated, in a great degree, to the support of common schools. Ordinary education is so far enforced in that state, that if parents will not teach their children the elements of knowledge, by causing them to read the English tongue well, and to know the laws against capital offences, the selectmen of the town are enjoined to take their children from such parents, and bind them out to proper masters, where they will be educated to some useful employment, and will be taught to read and write, and the rules of arithmetic necessary to transact ordinary business. This law, said the late Chief Justice Reeve, has produced very astonishing effects, and to it is to be attributed the knowledge of reading and writing, so universal among the people of that state. In Massachusetts they have nothing which bears the name of a school fund, yet

a States of Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.

b Domestic Relations, p. 287.

c During the twenty-seven years in which that distinguished lawyer was in extensive practice of the law, he informs us he never found but one person in Connecticut that could not write.

liberal donations have been made for the support of grammar schools, ordained by law in every town of the state of a certain size. The legislature of Virginia, also, some years ago, appropriated the greater part of the income of a literary fund, to the establishment of schools for the education of the poor throughout the state.

The laws of our own state were formerly exceedingly deficient on this subject, and we had no legal provision for the establishment of town schools, or the common education of children, except the very unimportant authority given to the overseers of the poor, and two justices, to bind out poor children as apprentices, according to their degree and ability, and the obligation imposed upon their masters to learn them to read and write. But since the year 1795, a new and bright light shines upon our domestic annals, and from that era we date the commencement of a great and spirited effort on the part of government, to encourage common schools throughout the state. The annual sum of 50,000 dollars was appropriated for five years, and distributed equitably among the several towns, for the establishment and encouragement of schools, for teaching children the most useful and necessary branches of a good English education. A sum equal to one half of the sum granted by the state to each town, was directed to be raised by each town, during the same period, for an additional aid to the schools. In 1805, a permanent fund for the support of common schools was first provided, and it was enlarged by subsequent legislative appropriations. An increasing anxiety for the growth, security, and application of the fund, and a deep sense of its value and importance, were constantly felt. In 1811, the legislatured took mea

a Act of 9th of April, 1795, ch. 75.

b Act of April 2d, 1805, ch. 66.

e Act of March 13th, 1807, ch. 32.

d Act of April 9th, 1811, ch. 246. s. 54.

"

sures for the preparation and digest of a system for the organization and establishment of common schools, and the distribution of the interest of the school fund. In 1812," the present system was established, under the direction of an officer known as the superintendent of common schools. The interest of the school fund was directed to be annually distributed among the several towns, in a ratio to their population, provided the towns should raise a sum equal to their proportion, by a tax upon themselves. Each town was directed to be divided into school districts, and town commissioners and school inspectors were directed to be chosen, and the children who had access to these schools were to be between the ages of five and fifteen years.

This system thus established, has prospered to an astonishing degree. In 1820, the fund distributed was $80,000, in addition to a like sum, which was raised by taxation, in the several school districts, and applied in the same way. In 1823, there were 7382 school districts, and consequently as many common schools; and upwards of 400,000 children, or more than one fourth of our entire population, were instructed in that year, in these common schools. The sum of $182,000, and upwards, was expended in that year, from the permanent school fund, and the moneys raised by town taxes, for that purpose, in the support of common schools. The general and local school fund, according to the report of the superintendent of common schools, of the 8th January, 1824, amounted to $1,637,000; and it is well known to be in a course of steady, progressive enlargement.

According to the last annual report of the superintendent. of common schools, made in January, 1827, there were 431,601 children taught at the public schools, without including those belonging to 570 school districts, from which no reports were received. The instruction is probably very scanty in many of the schools, from the want of

a Act of June 19th, 1812, ch. 212.