education, and church education. The main doctrine of the New Testament, as a whole, is that loving service leads to happiness and safety-for the individual, to what we call heaven; for society, to what we call the kingdom of God.

THE EXEMPTION FROM TAXATION

OF CHURCH PROPERTY, AND THE PROPERTY OF EDUCATIONAL, LITERARY, AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS

THE EXEMPTION FROM TAXATION1

THE

HE property which has been set apart for religious, educational, and charitable uses is not to be thought of or dealt with as if it were private property; for it is completely unavailable for all the ordinary purposes of property, so long as the trusts endure. It is like property of a city or State which is essential for carrying on the work of the city or State, and so cannot be reckoned among the public assets; it is irrecoverable and completely unproductive. The capital is sunk, so to speak, just as the cost of a sewer or a highway is capital sunk. There is a return, both from a church or a college,

1 CAMBRIDGE, December 12, 1874. To the Commissioners of the Commonwealth, appointed "to inquire into the expediency of revising and amending the laws of the State relating to taxation and the exemptions therefrom":·

GENTLEMEN:- In accordance with a request contained in a letter of October 14, 1874, from Prof. J. H. Seelye, that I lay before your Commission my "views respecting the present exemption from taxation of property used for religious, educational, and charitable purposes," I respectfully present for your consideration the following paper. Your obedient servant,

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

and from a sewer or a highway, in the benefit secured to the community; but the money which built them is no longer to be counted as property, in the common sense. It can never again be productive, except for the purposes of the trust for which it was set apart.

When a new road is made where there was none, the State, or some individual, sacrifices the value of the land it covers, and the money spent in building the road. It also sacrifices the opportunity to tax, in the future, the improvements which might have been put upon that land if it had not been converted into a road, and all the indirect taxable benefits which might have been derived from the use for productive purposes of the land, and of the money which the road cost. When a church, or a college, or a hospital, buys land, and erects buildings thereon, the State does not sacrifice the value of the land, or the money spent upon the buildings; private persons make these sacrifices; but the State does sacrifice, by the exemption statute, the opportunity to tax, in the future, the improvements which might have been put upon that land if it had not been converted to religious, educational, or charitable uses, and all the indirect taxable benefits which might have been derived from the use for productive purposes of the land, and of the money which the buildings cost.

This is the precise burden of the exemption upon the State. Why does the State assume it? For a reason similar to, though much stronger than, its reason for building a new road and losing that area