State to provide sufficient facilities for training them to be good citizens, we will deserve and receive in the great hereafter anathema, and not ascription of praise." Id. at 4460. Incorporating a report made to the Kentucky legislature in 1822, Beckner quoted (referring to a system of common schools): " '... It is a system of practical equality in which the children of the rich and poor meet upon a perfect level and the only superiority is that of the mind.' " Id. at 4460. Beckner further declared, "Instruction of children under the auspices of the State has become the settled policy of our people." Id. at 4461. Beckner set out four permanent justifications for and characteristics of state provided schools: 1) The education of young people is essential to the prosperity of a free people. 2) The education should be universal and should embrace all children. 3) Public education should be supervised by the State, to assure that students develop patriotism and understand our government. 4) Education should be given to all--rich and poor--so that our people will be homogeneous in their feelings and desires. Id. at 4462-63. One final passage merits quotation. Since education provided by the State is no longer an open question, the only thing that remains is how it shall be made "most valuable and effective." Let Mr. Beckner's answer be a guidepost for all Kentuckians today and in the future: "If public schools have come to stay, if they are a part and parcel of our free institutions, woven into the very web and woof of popular government; and if they are in the future to be the dependence of the people of Kentucky for the instruction of their youth, what is the logic of the situation? Manifestly to encourage and improve them, to seize every opportunity to make them more efficient, to treat them with no niggard or stinted hand, but just in so far as we love our children, to try to make their training-places fit nurseries of immortal spirits that have divine purposes to fulfill on earth, and cannot hope to succeed, unless their intellectual powers be properly developed." Id. at 4463 (emphasis added). As if these powerful words were not sufficient to show the purpose of Section 183, consider those of delegate Moore--"Common schools make patriots and men who are willing to stand upon a common land. The boys of the humble mountain home stand equally high with those from the mansions of the city. There are no distinctions in the common schools, but all stand upon one level." Id. at 4531 (emphasis added). It serves no purpose to further lengthen this opinion with more verbiage from the Constitutional debates. Delegates Beckner and Moore told their fellow delegates and have told us, what this section means. --The providing of public education through a system of common schools by the General Assembly is the most "vital question" presented to them. --Education of children must not be minimized to the "slightest degree." --Education must be provided to the children of the rich and poor alike. -Education of children is essential to the prosperity of our state. --Education of children should be supervised by the State. --There must be a constant and continuing effort to make our schools more efficient. --We must not finance our schools in a de minimis fashion. --All schools and children stand upon one level in their entitlement to equal state support. This Court, in defining efficiency must, at least in part, be guided by these clearly expressed purposes. The framers of Section 183 emphasized that education is essential to the welfare of the citizens of the Commonwealth. By this animus to Section 183, we recognize that education is a fundamental right in Kentucky. LEGAL PRECEDENTS IN KENTUCKY Although the Court did not specifically comment on Section 183 in Major v. Cayce, 98 Ky. 357, 33 S.W. 93 (1895), it did state the essential requirements of a statute which the General Assembly enacted in compliance with that constitutional provision. "[U]nder the school law the pupils, all within the age and resident in the district, are