[129b-386]

23 Jan 1817

Plan Cat

1 o & 2 o

Postscript

II. Extension of suffrage

Reading

Proposed qualification for voting reading

2

12

Besides its direct use as above besides its direct use on /by/ which depends /is circulated/ its title to a plan here besides this its direct use, a provision /an arrangement/ to this effect comes recommended by two collateral circumstances uses /several important considerations/.

1. The blind excepted the exclusion the retraction is no other than what it depends upon /is in the power of/ every man to exempt himself from: if by the time he has that[?], by this time next year it will always have been in his power to remove the bar.

2. It will contribute, and in the most powerful manner to accelerate the accomplishment of that scheme /system/ of universal instruction, which though assuredly without any particular bar to this particular use, has been the object of so much attention and the subject of so much praise.

The power and the accomplishment will give support and assistance to each other: will in the eyes of all men they will give value and assistance /fire[?]/ to each other: the possession of the power will be a premium for /an inducement to/ the acquisition: of the accomplishment /endowment/ a recompense for the labour of attaining it: by /from/ the accomplishment when acquired the value of the power and the gratification attendant on the exercise of it will receive prodigious encrease.

The sensible gratification of the moment being the most formidable enemy to probity as well as to self-regarding prudence, every thing that comes into competition with it is thus far useful. The art of reading Even in its humblest form the art of reading is an inlet[?] to every thing that can come into competition with the gratification of sense.

Whatsoever money is expended in the purchase of this intellectual food /nourishment of the mind/ will not be expended in the purchase of the instruments /matter/ of intoxication: whatsoever time is occupied in reading will not be spent in drunkenness.

Simple as the institution is Of this simple and efficient institution, the effects in a moral will not be less salutary and less incontestable than in a political point of view.