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To promote the object of elementary instruction, money was appropriated by the legislature for the support of free schools throughout the State of Virginia. Men in easy circumstances and able to send their children to better schools would not accept this privilege, and those who might have considered such a privilege desirable under different circumstances would not accept for their own children what their more wealthy neighbors considered too unworthy for theirs. Thus it took on the character of a legislative bounty which none but mean persons or paupers would avail themselves of, so that it soon became wholly neglected by all. In many if not in all parts of New England, free schools, from the same cause that so effectually put them down in Virginia, fell into disrepute; viz., the increasing inequality in the condition of the people and the disposition of the rich to embrace for their children better opportunities for improvement than is afforded to all at the public expense. (Author's note.)