942

OHIO LEGISLATURE REPORTS CANAL ROUTES.

1823.

but because a vast number, that lived in Obio, still doubted whether Ohio would be their ultimate abiding place.

They came to the West to make money rather than to find a home, and did not care to help educate those whose want of education they might never feel.

Such was the state of things until about the year 1816, at which time several persons in Cincinnati, who knew the benefits of a free-school system, united, and commenced a correspondence wdth different portions of the State.

Their ideas being warmly responded to, by the dwellers in the Ohio Company's purchase, and the Western Reserve more particularly, committees of correspondence were appointed in the different sections, and various means were resorted to, to call the attention of the public to the subject; among the most efficient of which was the publication of an Education Almanac at Cincinnati.

This work was edited by Nathan Guilford, a lawyer of that place, who had from the first taken a deep interest in the matter. For several years this gentleman and his associates labored silently and ceaselessly to diffuse their sentiments, one attempt only being made to bring the subject into the legislature: this was in December, 1819, when Ephraim Cutler, of Washington county, brought in a bill for establishing common schools, which was lost in the Senate.

At length, in 1821, it having been clearly ascertained that a strong feeling existed in favor of a common school system through the eastern and north-eastern parts of the State, and it being also known that the western men, wdio were then about to bring forward their canal schemes, wished to secure the assistance of their less immediately benefited fellow-citizens, it was thought to be a favorable time to bring the free-school proposition forward; which, as before mentioned, was done by Mr. Atwater.

On the 3d of January, 1823, Mr. Worthington, on behalf of the 1823.] canal commissioners, presented a report upon the best route for a canal through the State, and a further examination was agreed upon; which was made during the year.

The friends of the common school system continued their efforts, and although they did not succeed in procuring an assembly favorable to their views, they diffused information and brought out inquiry.

Michigan during this year was invested with a new form of territorial government; Congress having authorized the appointment