WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
380
government. Nature has provided these channels of commerce and when improved they will supply the necessities and wants of communities, which railroads cannot accomplish for a length of time. True economy dictates that we should realize frorri them whatever advantage they possess. Having treated of the physical economy of our State, it is proper that I should advert to the intellectual and mo1·al improve- ment of our people. It is a truism that "to maintain liberty, in- telligence is indispensable." To attain this object, education is all important; it should not be confined to classes, but dissem, inated throughout the whole community. How to accomplish this object, to the greatest perfection, seems to be a subject yet left for solution. The Constitution evidences that its framers regarded education as a primary object, and in that instrument ample provisions were made for the endowment of Universities and the support of common schools. The improvement and perfection of common schools suggest themselves to me as the foundation upon which to erect the best system of education, and when the foundation is firmly laid, it will be easy to erect thereon materials for a University, if the voice of the State should, at some future day, require the establishment. To me it seems both wise and ex- pedient that all reasonable encouragement should be extended to all educational institutions now in existence, which have been established and sustained by individual enterprise, and to pro- mote the establishment of others in various portions of the State, thus rendering them more able to extend their usefulness, and increase their advantages to the community. In the attainment of these various objects, it does seem to me that two important desiderata must enter into the plan of their accomplishment: Economy in relation to the finances and the public domain, and strict accountability on the part of all public functionaries should be held indispensable. It is for the legislature to enact such laws as are necessary to attain this object, and secure the public treasury from imposition and fraud. So far as is dependent on my official action, I can assure my constituents that in the appoint- ment of official functionaries, I will entrust no man with office in whose integrity I have not entire confidence that he will dis- charge the duties of the trust confided to him with fidelity. I have confidence that my constituents, in the exercise of their discernment, will not fail to discriminate between that which was desired to be accomplished, and could not be done for want of
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