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THOUGHTS 
 
 OJ? 
 
 POPULAR AND LIBERAL EDUCATION, 
 
 WITH SOME DEFENCE OS 
 
 THE ENGLISH AND SAXON LANGUAGES ; 
 
 IN THE FORM OF AN ADDRESS TO THE PHILOMATHEAX 
 SOCIETY OF INDIANA COLLEGE. 
 
 DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 2STH, 1836. 
 
 BY CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D. 
 
 P.1INTED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. V^'.. - 
 
 / 
 
 LEXINGTON, KY: 
 
 INTELLIGENCER PRINT. 
 
 1836. 
 
1 * 
 
THOUGHTS 
 
 ON 
 
 POPULAR A1¥I> LIBERAL EDUCATION, 
 
 &C. &C. &C. 
 
 Gentlemen: — It has been your pleasure to honour me with 
 an invitation, very flatteringly communicated, to participate in 
 the ministry of this Festival of Letters. Pursuant to that ac- 
 tion on your part, I now rise, on mine, with such resources as 
 I can bring to the task, to redeem the pledge, which my accept- 
 ance of the proffered invitation implied. In the discharge of 
 this duty, I feel it incumbent on me, to conform, as far as prac- 
 ticable, to the spirit of the occasion which has called us to- 
 gether. That spirit, as just intimated, is literary and scientific; 
 and as such I shall regard it. 
 
 Education has been the principal business of your lives, and 
 of the lives of those associated with you in the celebration of 
 your anniversary; education has called us into this sanctua- 
 ry of the Muses; the patrons of education have assembled 
 at the summons; and every thing around us is redolent of ed- 
 ucation. It seems proper therefore that it should constitute 
 the theme of the discourse I am to deliver. Nor, in the en- 
 tire circle of earthly concerns, vast and multifarious as they 
 are, can another to equal it in importance be selected. In the 
 grandeur and sacredness of its object, the mightiness of its 
 power, and the magnitude of its effects, it is unrivalled and 
 alone. 
 
 Extravagant as this representation may appear, to those 
 who have not duly considered the subject, and unwelcome as 
 it may possibly be to the self-esteem of others, who are en- 
 gaged in pursuits which they think outrank education — not- 
 
withstanding these and nil other considerations that may array 
 themselves against it, the statement submitted to you is true to 
 the letter. And I am the more resolved to defend its truth, 
 on account of the opposition in sentiment it so uniformly and 
 illiberally encounters. Neither is education itself, nor the able 
 and accomplished conductors of it in our country, held in that 
 high esteem, nor elevated, in public opinion, to that distin- 
 guished rank, to which they are entitled. There are Jack 
 Cades in America, as well as in Europe, and at the present, no 
 less than in former times; who, to propitiate the untaught mul- 
 titude towards themselves, and prejudice them against the more 
 cultivated and enlightened, exult in their own uneducated con- 
 dition, decry the fruits of education in others, and endeavour to 
 make a glory of their shame, by converting their illiteracy into 
 a stepping-stone to power. Nor is this all. The statesman 
 and the lawyer, the physician, the divine, and even the mer- 
 chant and the planter consider themselves and their callings 
 superior to the teacher and his calling — though they are noth- 
 ing in fact but the creatures of education. In the practical 
 pursuit of his profession, the teacher moulds and fashions them, 
 as the sculptor does his marble, or the potter his clay. Nor 
 have they a shadow of ground for preferring their vocations 
 to his, but because they are less laborious, r.nd more lucrative. 
 That they are either more honourable in their nature, more 
 weighty and responsible in the duties they impose, or more 
 useful in their effects, they will not contend. That I may 
 not, however, commence my discourse with a position deem- 
 ed doubtful by any one, it is requisite that I adduce a lew 
 facts in its defence. It will be borne in mind, that, in the re- 
 marks I have already made, as well as in those I am about to 
 make, I allude to education in the full and entire signification 
 of the term. Enlightened and cultivated mind, and acquired 
 dexterity of every description, are essentially its products. 
 
 The paramount "grandeur of the object' 1 of education just 
 referred to is incontestible; because it is nothing less, than to 
 rescue the human family from the ignorance and ferocity, de- 
 gradation and profligacy of brutish savagism, and exalt them to 
 
civilization, science and virtue. And this, neither legislators 
 nor lawyers, physicians nor divines, are able in their special 
 vocations to effect. The "mightiness of the power" of educa- 
 tion is evinced by its achievement in part of this arduous en- 
 terprise. And the "magnitude of its effects" is sufficiently 
 demonstrated, by all that is vast, magnificent, and glorious, in 
 the works of civilized and cultivated man, which are exclu- 
 sively its offspring — by productions in poetry and philosophy, 
 history and eloquence, radiant in all that genius can impart; 
 by the pyramid and the column, the "solemn temple" and the 
 "gorgeous palace-," by the "cloud-capt tower," the perforated 
 mountain, the excavated lake and river, and the wonders of 
 navigation by wind and by steam — these and the innumerable 
 sublime and exquisite creations of painters and musicians, 
 sculptors and other artists, sufficiently attest the mightiness of 
 education. And they are so many stars of the highest order 
 and brightest emblazonry, in the heraldry of the teacher. So 
 powerful indeed is -education in the work of improvement, that 
 it is second only to Creative Power, in making the most illus- 
 trious of our race what they are. It completes- what Creative 
 Power had only begun. From the universality and absolute- 
 ness of its dominion "over human affairs, it may be regarded as 
 the Vicegerent of the Deity on earth. Without it, man would 
 be one of the most vile and ferocious, yet helpless and misera- 
 ble of sublunary beings. With it, he is "monarch of all he 
 surveys." 
 
 To form yet a more clear and definite conception of the 
 sway of education over the character and destiny of human 
 beings, compare the Laplander or the Kamschadale, the Bos- 
 cheseman or the Papuan, with the highly cultivated European 
 or American; and mark the issue. The difference in intellect 
 and efficiency, morals, manners, and corporeal attributes, be- 
 tween those members of the human family, you will find to be 
 striking even to amazement— may appearances be trusted,quite 
 as great, as that between the uncultured savages, and the mis- 
 shapen Golok or Wild Man cf the woods. And this difference, 
 I say, is in no small degree attributable to the influence of 
 
6 
 
 teachers. Yet in this comparison, neither is education perfect 
 in the European or the American (for it may be still improved 
 in them,) nor altogether wanting in the beings contrasted with 
 them. The absolute debasement, therefore of uneducated 
 man, and of course the utmost potency of that agent, which, 
 from such deep degradation raises him to such a height in the 
 scale of existence are hitherto unknown to us. 
 
 But to understand the power of education in its entire ex- 
 tent, and in all its modes and forms of influence, we must take 
 a different and less restricted view of it. We must contem- 
 plate it in its action, not on individuals, and at given times, but 
 on communities and nations, and at all times; and on the world 
 in the aggregate. Under this aspect of the inquiry, adverting 
 in retrospect to a far distant period, the mystical grandeur of 
 Egypt and the wonders of ancient Persia and Palestine, the 
 glories of Greece and the mightiness of Rome, present them- 
 selves as a few of the trophies of education. Compare these 
 with the portentous gloom of the Dark Ages, which, like a 
 second chaos, overspread the earth, when education and its 
 products lay prostrate under the tread of the Goth and the 
 Vandal — and the contrast is rich in instruction, and interest. As 
 the noon-day brightness of the sun, suddenly extinguished in a 
 total eclipse, testifies to the loveliness and value of light in the 
 material world, so did the nightfall of the Dark Ages in the 
 world of the mind. And as the departure of the sun from the 
 heavens summons to their banquet of blood the monsters of the 
 forest, so did the going down of the sun of education awaken 
 to the work of desolation and ruin, that fiercer and more insa- 
 tiate monster, uncultivated man. 
 
 Descending through later ages to the present era, take a 
 survey of the globe by land and by water, and mark how it is 
 studded, and ornamented, and changed, by the miracles of ed- 
 ucation. No tongue can describe, no pencil paint, nor scarce- 
 ly can the most vigorous fancy conceive, the differences in 
 science and sound government, civilization, moral order, litera- 
 ture, and the arts, between France and Great Britain now, 
 and at the time when they were subjugated by the legions of 
 
Ceesar. From those nations have issued streams of living light 
 and knowledge, and other prodigies of mind, which nothing 
 can extinguish or destroy, short of the wreck of the earth which 
 they adorn. The fearful grandeur and consolidated power of 
 Prussia, Austria, and Russia, more especially the latter, form 
 another monument of the sway of education, to which" anti- 
 quity had nothing to compare. Before the military array of 
 those nations, educated as they now are, Alexander and his 
 Macedonians, Caesar and his cohorts, would have been but 
 stubble in the fire, or chaff before the storm. Nor is our own 
 country without her wonders from the same source. Within 
 the last two hundred years, education has perhaps done more 
 for the glory and happiness of the New World, than even of 
 the Old, 
 
 When our forefathers arrived on the shores of the country 
 they had selected as their home, they encountered but a wilder- 
 ness; where the lights of intellectual, and the sobrieties and 
 courtesies of moral and social nature were unknown and disre- 
 garded; and which was trodden only by the savage and his 
 prey. But, since that period, marvels of improvement, of 
 every description, have followed each other, with n rapidity 
 and constancy of march, and have spread abroad through the 
 land, with a width of diffusion, which superstition, in former 
 times, would have ascribed to agencies higher than human. 
 Of these multiplied products of education in our country, the 
 most striking and stupendous were the war of the Revolution, 
 and the formation and establishment of the Federal Govern* 
 ment. With th«m, considered in their principles, economy, 
 and relations, the world presents nothing, in the same line, 
 that will bear a comparison. In their display of courage and 
 fortitude, wisdom, talent, and moral grandeur, they far surpass 
 all other similar achievements that history records. Other Re- 
 volutions indeed, in other lands, have rolled their bloody 
 rounds; and other forms of government have been erected on 
 the ruins of preceding ones; but nothing like those of the 
 United States, have been presented to the admiration and 
 wonder of our race. And, I repeat, that they are the offspring 
 of all-controlling education* 
 
Here a question vitally important, not only to ourselves, but 
 to the citizens of all free governments now existing, or to exist 
 hereafter, presents itself for solution. Has education comple- 
 ted its work in the United States? Has it so far enlightened 
 the intellects, and improved and confirmed the morals of the 
 people, as to nt them for the enjoyment and exercise of the 
 privileges they posses.^und^r the institutions that have descend- 
 ed to them from their fathers? In simpler language; has it 
 fully prepared them for that great work of sovereignty, the 
 highest of social and political achievements, the task of self- 
 government? Interesting as this question is, as a mere theme 
 of inquiry, and momentous as is its affirmative to our individual 
 rights and immunities, and our national welfare, a decided nega- 
 tive is the only reply, that truth can sanction or honesty 
 render. As a people, we are not educated in a degree corres- 
 ponding to the privileges we enjoy, and the duties they impose 
 on us. Those privileges therefore will be forfeited and lost, 
 unless the caste of our education be greatly improved. Of the 
 truth of this prediction, evidence crowds on us in a ratio fear- 
 fully increasing with the progress of time. Nothing can save 
 us from the fate of all Republics that have gone before us — 
 corruption, misrule, anarchy, and despotism — but improve- 
 ment by education in our intellects and morals. History warns 
 us, that they fell for want of this; and so sha-1 we — an event as 
 unquestionable, and as directly the product of a law of nature, 
 now in operation, as that the approaching winter will strip 
 your magnificent forests of their leaves, and your prairies of 
 their verdure — unless, I say, the catastrophe be averted by the 
 agency referred to. 
 
 Does any one reply to me, that this is but empty prophesy — 
 as groundless and visionary, as it is gloomy and disheartening? 
 — that sixty years ago our liberties were won for us, by the 
 swords of our lathers? — and that we are as resolutely deter- 
 mined, and as amply p .-spared to maintain them now, as were 
 the heroes and patriots of seventx-six, with Franklin, and 
 Hancock, and Washington at their head? — that, enjoying as 
 we do, the franchise of electing our public servants, and in- 
 
9 
 
 structing and controlling them, in the discharge of their du- 
 ties, our freedom audits concomitant privileges are secure; 
 and that therefore all apprehension and gloomy foreboding in 
 relation to them are imaginary and futile? Is such the answer 
 prepared by any one to the remarks here submitted to you? 
 
 My rejoinder is simple, and, I trust, satisfactory. The 
 danger arrayed against the liberties of our fathers in 1776 was 
 totally different from that which threatens ours in 1836; and 
 much less insidious and likely to destroy. The danger then was 
 open assault and violence from without; and the eye could des- 
 cry, and the sword repel it. But the danger now, assuming no 
 visible shape, is from craft, intrigue, and corruption within ;which 
 nothing but intelligence and virtue can resist — an ampler meas- 
 ure of those protective qualities,! am compelled to add, than is 
 possessed, at present, by the general population of the U. States. 
 Let me entreat you to understand me, as not addressing you 
 thus, in the spirit, or with the feelings of a political partisan. 
 Far from it. An act of the kind would be as indelicate and 
 unbecoming in me, as it would be unworthy of you, and of the 
 occasion we celebrate. I speak of the political condition of 
 our country, not merely as it now is, but as I know it to have 
 been for the last thirty or forty years. No administration of our 
 government is, more than another, exempt from the charge, 
 except the administration of Washington, which was alone 
 paternal and patriotic, virtuous and pure, — founded in wisdom 
 and conducted in the spirit of rectitude and honour — alone 
 free from the sordidness of self, the injustice of favouritism, 
 and the plague-spots of party. The reason is plain. No more 
 could corruption or intrigue, or any form of dishonesty, polit- 
 ical or moral, subsist under the frown of the Chief Magistrate 
 then in power, than can the pestilent vapour endure the radi- 
 ance of the mid-day sun! The lightning of his eye was as fatal 
 to them, as had been that of his sword to the enemies of freedom. 
 Nor did the boldest partisan dare to approach him with an un- 
 hallowed request,to procure the promotion of the incompetent or 
 the unworthy. He was truly President of the United States, 
 above party influence and feelings, doing justice to all, and fa- 
 
10 
 
 vojs to none-and aiming exclusively at the welfare of his country* 
 His successors in office (in standing and virtue, he has had no 
 successor) have been but the chiefs of parties — upheld by their 
 trains of feudal retainers, whom they have rewarded for their 
 services by appointment and place! 
 
 As respects the subsequent a dministrations, the charge just 
 preferred is true; some of them being more deeply amenable 
 to it than others. And faithful history will say hereafter, 
 whether the evil does not increase with the progress of time. 
 When one of the heavenly bodies departs from its track, there 
 is reason to apprehend that it would tumble into the sun, did 
 not the others, acting in concert, and co-operating with its 
 own laws, restore it to its place. In like manner, unless the 
 influence of education arrest our government in its erratic 
 career, and replace it in its proper orbit, , it will, as already 
 predicted, plunge through anarchy into the grasp of despotism. 
 But to return. 
 
 Did the danger to our liberties, I say, proceed as it did in 
 Seventy-six, from the bayonets of an external foe, its duration 
 would be transient, and its issue certain. It would be met as 
 courageously, and repelled as triumphantly, by the heroic spir- 
 its of the present day, as it was by the Invincibles of our re- 
 volutionary conflict. For it need not here be told by me, hun- 
 dreds of well fought fields, and blood-red decks having proclaimed 
 it elsewhere, that Americans always do their duty in battle. 
 But there is a danger to our freedom, invisible I say to the 
 physical eye, and immeasurably greater than that of the sword. 
 It is the danger of intrigue, corruption, and bribery, in some 
 of the forms they habitually put on, and of the wily and 
 treacherous practices they pursue. Nor can this b'e success- 
 fully opposed by personal bravery, or any thing pertaining to 
 the profession of arms. It must be met and overthrown by 
 the resources of education, else its triumph is certain; and des- 
 pots and their minions, scoffing at our experiment of self-gov- 
 ernment, and exulting in its failure, will aid in rivetlingon us 
 the letters of slavery. 
 
 From these remarks on the general power and usefulness 
 
11 
 
 of education, and its peculiar importance to ourselves, as cit- 
 izens of a free representative government, I shall proceed to 
 the consideration of the manner and means, by which its ben- 
 efits may be most readily secured to us. In other words; how 
 it may best be improved in its character, and most readily 
 diffused throughout the States of the Union. This view, if 
 fully followed out, would eventuate in a scheme of national 
 education. But I must not now attempt an enterprise of such 
 compass. Even when contracted to* its narrowest limits, it is 
 still a subject so extensive in its range, and so abundant in mat- 
 ter, that I can do nothing more, in the time and space within 
 which I must restrict myself, than hastily sketch an outline of 
 my opinions. That order and method may not be altogether 
 wanting in the discussion, education will be considered under 
 the usual division of Popular and Liberal — Classical edu- 
 cation making a branch of the latter. 
 
 By Popular education, I mean, as you must be aware, that 
 which is accessible to the people at large, and which many 
 of them receive. From the nature of the case, therefore, it 
 be neither extensive nor profound. By Liberal education, that 
 which is attainable, only, or chiefly, by the wealthier classes. 
 This, as its denomination imports, and as will be made to ap- 
 pear more fully hereafter, is of a higher order. Which of these 
 two castes of education is most essential to the public welfare, 
 is a question I leave to the scrutiny of others. They are both 
 so essential, that a lack of either can never fail to be pernicious 
 in its consequences. 
 
 Popular education, I say, belongs more particularly to that 
 great class of the community, which, from its majority in num- 
 bers, has the command of social and political power, and is 
 privileged to delegate it for special purposes. When competent 
 in amount and sound in condition, it prepares its possessors for 
 the judicious and successful transaction of private affairs; 
 and, in the exercise of their public immunities, it enlightens 
 and directs them, and ministers essentially to their interests 
 and security. More especially, in the employment of then- 
 elective franchise, it is their buckler and their shield— their 
 
12 
 
 most effectual safeguard against the devices and intrigues of de- 
 magogues, who would mislead them, and their most trust- 
 worthy monitor, in the choice of candidates for public stations. 
 Without it, they are unqualified for such choice, and liable to be 
 made instruments in the hands of designing and unprincipled 
 men, for the accomplishment of selfish and pernicious ends. 
 For, in free governments, the illiterate and uninformed are but 
 ladders for the intriguing. to climb into power. And when 
 their object is attained, they look down in scorn on the dupes, 
 if they do not spurn them, on whose shoulders they had as- 
 cended. This truth should be made known to the people in 
 their youth, as a part of their education, that their pride may unite 
 with their intelligence, to protect them alike from the insult and 
 deception, with which they are threatened. 
 
 Though it may not be asserted, that all who are destitute of 
 the benefits of a liberal education are unfit for public station, 
 nor that every one possessing such benefits is fit for it; yet none 
 will deny, that, other things being equal, the liberally educated 
 are best prepared for all the higher operations of mind, in pub- 
 lic as well as in private life. In the United States much more 
 than in any other country, all offices and appointments are 
 open alike to men of all forms and degrees, of education — and 
 even to those who can hardly be said to be educated at all. 
 Nor is the measure perhaps altogether disadvantageous. It 
 gives scope for action, in many cases, to genius and laudable 
 ambition, which they could not have had without it, and thus de- 
 velops latent powers, which would otherwise lie dormant and 
 be lost to society. That it has also however its concomitant 
 evils must be obvious to every one. It is the chief source of 
 the swarms of crafty demagogues and aspirants to office, that 
 inundate our country, fan into perpetual flame the fires of 
 party, make a business of intrigue themselves and teach it to 
 others, and breathe but in the atmosphere of discord and strife. 
 And these flocks of harpies, as foul and detestable as those of 
 the poet, and of much worse omen, are most fearfully on the 
 increase. Their number now, compared to that which annoy- 
 ed us at the commencement of the present century, is proba- 
 bly in the proportion of a hundred to one. And their skilful- 
 
13 
 
 ness in deception and the perpetration of mischief has augment- 
 ed in perhaps a corresponding ratio. From this condition of 
 things arises the alarming truth, that the people of the United 
 States, as a body, are more deeply infected with the spirit of 
 political ambition, trickishness, and fraud, than any other peo- 
 ple now in existence — or that ever did exist. 
 
 The very fact, that State preferment is open to every one, 
 excites hundreds of thousands to aspire to it, and to become agi- 
 tators and annoyers of the community, who would otherwise 
 pursue some humble but useful vocation, for which alone they 
 are fitted by nature. Nor have they a right to aim at any 
 thing higher. It is not true, that all men are born with "equal 
 rights" any more than that they are' born with equal talents. 
 As far as public station is concerned, rights and talents are 
 the measures of each other. No man has a right to an office-, 
 which he wants talents to administer. Nor can the suffrages 
 of the people confer on him such a right; because the proceed- 
 ing is in violation of a law of natwe, which is tantamount to 
 the will of God. And the aspirants here referred to, being un- 
 able to succeed in their designs, from a want of strength of 
 mind and character, united to an entire destitution of personal 
 worth, have recourse to cunning and artifice; or, from a 
 spirit of servility, added to other traits of meanness, become 
 panders to the ambition of higher and stronger jugglers of 
 State, and descend to the sycophancy and vileness of parasites 
 and retainers. In this way is the whole community, I say, be- 
 coming imbued, to a fearful extent, with the rank leaven of po- 
 litical corruption. Nor is all yet told. Of this career of petty 
 and misplaced aspiration to power, intemperance rarely fails 
 to be the issue. For the tavern and the dram-shop are the 
 places of resort of vulgar politicians; where, after having 
 forged their calumnies, and concerted their plots against the 
 upright and deserving, they hold high carnival, and celebrate 
 their orgies. Thus is useful industry abandoned by them, hon- 
 esty and moral observances neglected or violated, and habits 
 of dissipation and debauchery formed. And thus do sottish- 
 ness and beggary prove the lot of some of them, guilt and the 
 
1-1 
 
 penitentiary of others, and ruin iu some shape of nearly all. 
 Such is and must be the fate of the idle, unprincipled, and 
 designing, who, pursuing no productive employment them- 
 selves, and contributing in no shape to the welfare of society, 
 but disturbing its harmony by personal slander and party ex- 
 citement, seek to subsist, by the arts of deception, on the 
 labour pf their fellow men. 
 
 For these evils the only remedy is a system of Popular edu- 
 cation, wisely planned and digested, faithfully pursued, and 
 skilfully executed, and extended throughout the Union. If any 
 thing should be strictly national, in compass and character, 
 under a federate and representative government, it is the men- 
 tal discipline of those who constitute the nation. On no other 
 principle can union and harmony, order and prosperity be so 
 certainly attained by them. Discrepant views, jarring inter- 
 ests, and incongruous elements are known to be incompatible 
 with the welfare of families. And a nation is but a family on 
 an extended Scale. 
 
 But Popular education in the United States, on which the 
 moral, intellectual, and political soundness of the country so 
 essentially depends, is in a deplorable condition. Three or 
 four States perhaps excepted, this is true of the Union. And 
 even of the excepted States, it is true to an extent sufficiently 
 ominous. The reason is plain. Except in the cities, and a 
 few of the larger towns of the Union, the teachers of primary 
 schools are as unfit for their vocation, as imagination can con- 
 ceive. Their want of knowledge and letters, manners, dignity, 
 and character can hardly be surpassed. They are therefore 
 disqualified alike to instruct and govern, set example and com- 
 mand respect. In truth they are disqualified for every thing 
 connected with education; because they are wholly uned- 
 ucated themselves. Too indolent to labour with their hands, 
 and too ignorant or feeble-minded to be concerned in bu- 
 siness where intellect and knowledge are requisite, they be- 
 come "school-masters," and teach their scholars bad English, 
 bad habits, bad manners, and too often bad morals. I do not 
 aver that this is the case with all of them. But I pronounce it 
 
15 
 
 true of a very large majority of those of them i have personal- 
 ly known, or of whose character and standing I have been cor- 
 rectly informed. 
 
 Vitally important to us as Popular education is, it is more 
 miserably provided for, than any other form of business in the 
 community. And we sustain and tolerate more abuses in it, 
 than in any other. To this the lowest mechanical trade forms 
 no exception. True; large sums of money are annually ex- 
 pended on it, by many of the States. Each State in the Un- 
 ion, I believe, possesses its "education fund" and freely disbur- 
 ses it, no doubt from patriotic and beneficent motives; and un- 
 der the belief that much good is effected by it. But the money 
 thus disposed of is virtually wasted, by being bestowed on 
 men, who do little or nothing in return for it — many of whom 
 indeed do more harm than good — for bad teaching is worse 
 than no teaching at all ; error, prejudice, and incorrect practices 
 being its principal products. 
 
 To an extent so amazing is this evil carried, that it is neither 
 unfounded nor extravagant to say, that, in thousands of instan- 
 ces, in the United States, much more attention is paid to the 
 breeding and improvement of domestic animals, than to the 
 education of children. And men are employed to teach the 
 latter, who would not be intrusted with the care of the former. 
 In a far distant country, it is well known that the celebrated 
 Oberlin found an ignoramus training children, who had been 
 dismissed for incompetency from the supervision of pigs. He 
 was unfit to be a swine-herd — the most ignominious of herds- 
 men! yet he was teaching human beings! Nor is our own 
 country free from the disgrace of school-masters equally un- 
 qualified! The stock-fairs, which abound in our country, may 
 be offered as evidence, not easily set aside or refuted, that 
 more solicitude is felt for the improvement of cattle, than for 
 that of the human race. At those shows, which are instituted 
 with much pomp, and at no little expense, premiums are 
 awarded to the breeders of the best horses, cows, mules, sheep, 
 and other sorts of domestic animals. But no public provisions 
 are made for doing'suitable honors to the best instructors of 
 
1G 
 
 boys and girls. Such I mean is the neglect of this vital inter- 
 est through the country at large — laudable exceptions being 
 found in a few places, where the people are more enlightened, 
 and mental cultivation more liberally prized. No wonder 
 then, that Popular education is in so degraded a condition. 
 
 For the lamentable deficiencies' of the teachers of common 
 country schools, two substantial reasons may be rendered. 
 As already stated, those teachers are themselves untaught, and 
 must therefore be deficient; nor are the salaries they receive 
 sufficiently ample, to secure and reward the services of com- 
 petent men. As a general rule, the emoluments of country 
 "school-masters" are inferior to those of journeymen mechan- 
 ics; and greatly below the receipts of dram-selling grocers, 
 pedlars, and overseers. That their abilities are humble, there- 
 fore, and their performances of little value, is not surprising. 
 It would be matter of surprise, if the case were otherwise. In 
 instruction, as in other forms of business, the rank of talents 
 employed, and the worth of services rendered, are usually 
 found to bear a fair proportion to the salaries received. And 
 that it will continue to be so, comports with the principles of 
 human nature. 
 
 It has been observed that large sums of money have been 
 expended annually, by most of the States of the Union, on 
 Popular education. To this may be added, that much time 
 has been consumed, innumerable Resolutions passed, and vol- 
 umes of Reports made and published, in devising and matur- 
 ing suitable schemes for that caste of instruction, by Legisla- 
 tures, societies, and well-meaning and public-spirited individu- 
 als. And still but little improvement has been made in it. 
 For this there must be substantial reasons. Nor do they ap- 
 pear to me to be deeply concealed. When canvasses are held 
 fur the selection of teachers, the choice usually falls, not so 
 much on those who are best qualified to teath ; as on those who 
 are willing to attempt to teach for the mcagercst salaries. 
 Thus does the process assume a puny, chaffering, "cheap- 
 shop" character, and, like every other effort, where miserly 
 meanness usurps the plaee oi' liberal eeonomv, terminates in 
 
17 
 
 disappointment, if not in some other more pernicious form 
 of mischief. Those again who have been engaged in prepar- 
 ing schemes of education, have been not only unqualified for 
 the task, from their deficiency in the knowledge of mental phil- 
 osophy; but they have begun the business at the wrong end. 
 The prevailing notion seems to be, that Popular education 
 must be first provided for and commenced, as the basis of ed- 
 ucation of a higher order — that, in fact, the "higher order" 
 rests on the lower and is sustained by it, as the arch-work of 
 the bridge is sustained by its abutments and piers. But this 
 is a mistake, as must be obvious to every one, who will examine 
 the subject, under the guidance of reason, and with the delibe- 
 ration it deserves. Nor can any thing be simpler or easier 
 than to rectify it. In rearing the fabric of general education, 
 the common order of construction must be reversed. The 
 architect must build from the top downward. In no other way 
 can he complete his edifice. In less equivocal language; the 
 higher caste of education must be patronized and matured first, 
 for the formation of suitable teachers for the lower — teachers I 
 mean for primary schools. Without such instructors, as al- 
 ready mentioned, common schools are a nuisance. And those 
 teachers can be formed only in institutions of a superior order. 
 Nor will common high schools, colleges, and universities an- 
 swer for their production. Such institutions produce scholars; 
 but are they calculated for the formation of competent teachers? 
 I reply that they are not. Every scholar, however richly his 
 mind may be stored, is not fitted for the work of instruction. 
 Teaching is an art; and, like other arts, it can be learnt only 
 by preparation and practice. In further resemblance of other 
 arts, moreover, it requires in those who would excel . or even 
 be respectable in it, certain given native qualities, without 
 which failure is inevitable. Some of the qualities indispensa- 
 ble to the teacher, are patience, perseverance, evenness of 
 temper, self-command, a fitness to govern and conciliate, a 
 strong sense of moral duty, dignity of deportment, a turn for 
 order, punctuality, and method, and a promptness, perspicuity, 
 and agreeableness in the communication of knowledge. He 
 3 
 
18 
 
 who does not possess most of these, should never enter on the 
 work of instruction. 
 
 As relates to this point, I deem it my duty, on the present 
 occasion, to speak in terms of deep reprehension, of many of 
 our candidates for political favours. More or less at all times, 
 but especially when they are soliciting the suffrages of their 
 fellow-citizens for places of honour and profit, those charac- 
 ters disseminate error through the community, and lay the 
 foundation of much mischief in respect to education. The 
 more certainly to propitiate the illiterate and uninformed por- 
 tion of the people, and render them favourable to the objects 
 of their ambition and cupidity, they profess themselves ardent 
 friends and advocates of "Popular education," which, as al- 
 ready stated, belongs to that class of the people, and often de- 
 pict "Liberal education" in such colours, as to excite prejudi- 
 ces against it in the common mind. Instead of representing 
 the latter form of education in its true character and relations, 
 as the parent and sustainer of the former, they even, in the 
 reckless spirit and Vandalic temper which characterize the par- 
 tizans and demagogues of the day, denounce it as the source 
 of an "aristocracy of learning," unfriendly to the "rights and 
 interests of the people," and incompatible with "republican sim- 
 plicity" — as if such simplicity, ignorance, and illiteracy were 
 the same! By representations of this sort, they prejudice the 
 populace against the higher seats of learning, and against liberal 
 learning itself, and render them hostile to the only course of 
 policy by which Popular education can be brought to its proper 
 standard and effect, in improving the public mind in intelligence 
 and virtue, and be diffused as a blessing throughout the com- 
 munity. 
 
 The mischief moreover thus engendered does not terminate 
 here. By the artifices alluded to, not only are the populace 
 rendered inimical to high schools, and the higher style of men- 
 tal cultivation, but also to those who possess such style, or 
 who, from wealth, or other causes, move in a sphere superior 
 to their own. Thus, between the different classes of the com- 
 munity, who are but elements oi' the same bodv. whose inter- 
 
19 
 
 ests are of course the same, and who ought therefore to live in 
 harmony with each other, and in the interchange of kind and 
 useful offices, — between these separate castes, which. are equal- 
 ly essential in constituting the aggregate of the State, and which 
 should cultivate toward each other a spirit of fraternity, and 
 sentiments of good will, are awakened and fostered, by the 
 sinister practices of the aspiring and unworthy, those feelings 
 of envy and jealousy, and that collision in measures, which vir-. 
 iuaily amount to a war on the part of the poor against the rich, 
 and of the ignorant against the informed, and constitute, at the 
 present eventful crisis, one of the most ill-favoured omens that 
 threatens our country. Nor is it possible for this evil to be 
 removed, and its consequences averted, unless a new system 
 of public instruction be introduced, dispread throughout the 
 Union, and administered with the faithfulness and ability it 
 demands. 
 
 In a word, Popular education will never attain in our coun- 
 try the perfection it requires, and of which it is susceptible, 
 until those employed to instruct shall be compelled to serve an 
 apprenticeship to their art, in common with all other artists, 
 whether of the mechanical or liberal classes. For instructors 
 alone are exempt from such training. My meaning is, that 
 this form of instruction will remain imperfect, until suitable 
 institutions shall be established, maintained, and skilfully ad- 
 ministered, for the formation of teachers. And it must be for the 
 formation of teachers alone — not for the mere production of 
 scholars. As already intimated, college and university pupils, 
 destined ultimately for the learned professions, are unsuitable 
 teachers for popular schools. The reason is plain. They are 
 not bred specifically to the business; which, in all cases and 
 employments, implies, in a higher or lower degree, a want of 
 fitness. And in no calling is the implication, or the fact, strong- 
 er or more certain, than in that of education. Common Col- 
 lege scholars take the direction of schools, without any pecu- 
 liar preparatory discipline; they are of course unskilled in 
 teaching; and, by the time they have become somewhat expe- 
 rienced in the art, and fitted to be useful in it. and have acquir- 
 
20 
 
 ed the means of prosecuting their professional studies, they 
 abandon it, and prepare themselves for their final pursuits — 
 and other inexperienced instructors succeed them, to follow a 
 like uninstruetive career. Thus does the chain of succession 
 go on, unexamined and unsuspected, because it is forged within 
 the walls of a college, where the workmen are believed to be 
 competent, though each link of it is imperfect in itself, and un- 
 . skilfully fitted to the place it occupies. Yet are these college- 
 bred youths, by far the best teachers that have usually the 
 charge of popular schools, because they have some knowledge 
 of letters, in which other teachers are shamefully deficient. 
 
 Let schools for the education and practical discipline of 
 teachers alone, then, I say, be established in the United States, 
 as is now done in Prussia, Austria, and elsewhere, under the 
 superintendence of qualified instructors. Let the pupils to 
 them be selected, on account of the suitable qualities they pos- 
 sess, and let there be an understanding, that they design to 
 follow teaching as a life-prof ession, not as a temporary or oc- 
 casional employment. In completion of this arrangement, 
 when their education, which should be appropriate and tho- 
 rough, is finished, and their diplomas conferred, they should 
 not, except under peculiar circumstances, be employed as 
 teachers, without giving a pledge, that they will continue their 
 instruction in the same school, for at least six or seven years — 
 unless permitted, for substantial reasons, to retire from it at an 
 earlier period. Few occurrences are more injurious to schools, 
 than the frequent change of instructors. Each change is ac- 
 companied by some corresponding change in the mode of in- 
 struction, by which the mind of the pupil becomes unsettled 
 and perhaps dissatisfied, and his progress in his studies more 
 or less obstructed. A material advantage, moreover, to Pop- 
 ular education, arising from the establishment of schools for 
 teachers, will be the introduction into schemes of teaching of 
 the requisite degree of uniformity and concert. All schemes 
 of the sort should, to a certain extent, correspond to such gene- 
 ral system, as may be deemed advisable, and be adopted as a 
 standard. 
 
21 
 
 The situation and construction, size and furnishing of school- 
 houses, are objects worthy of much more attention, than is 
 usually bestowed on them. So is the number of pupils, which 
 each teacher is allowed to superintend, as well as their divis- 
 ion into classes, and the number of hours they are required to 
 study, without relaxation. On no account should school-rooms 
 be crowded, especially during weather when the doors and 
 windows are closed. Though these details are small in them- 
 selves, they are often momentous and lasting in their conse- 
 quences. For we should never forget, that, in the words of the 
 poet, 
 
 "Little things are great to little men;" 
 
 and more especially to little children. 
 
 In fine; popular schools, where every thing practicable 
 should be well and faithfully done, for the promotion of intelli- 
 gence and virtue in those who are to be, in power and influence, 
 the "lords of the land," should be under the supervision of the 
 wisdom and talent of the land ; and be no longer left, as they 
 have heretofore been, and still are, to the direction of those, 
 who are incompetent to the direction of their own affairs — or 
 who direct them, at best with but little ability — and who, 
 through weakness and ignorance, are still more incompetent to 
 public affairs. 
 
 The system of education practised by the ancient Persians 
 was in some respects wiser, and in all respects much better 
 adapted to the end for which it ivas designed, than any system 
 now in vogue in modern nations. Among that great and war- 
 like people, the education of youth was compulsory. No one 
 was allowed to remain uneducated. Hence ignorance and 
 rudeness were banished from the State. And the training of 
 the moral faculties was as strictly attended to, as that of the 
 intellectual. 
 
 Better — infinitely better, that Popular education, properly 
 conducted, should fee rendered compulsory in the United States, 
 than be marred as it now is, or entirely neglected. Ignorance 
 and its concomitants, which are prolific sources of vice, misrule, 
 and misery are not only disgraceful to a people ; they are among 
 
22 
 
 the greatest of evils; and, like other evils, they should be extir- 
 minated or prevented by public authority. The mode of effect- 
 ing this, I may not venture to prescribe. But the correctness 
 of the principle I fearlessly maintain. If parents neglect to 
 educate their children, or if they set them a flagitious and ruin- 
 ous example, those children should be taken from them, 
 and be educated at their expense — provided they have 
 the means; and if not, at the expense of the State. The 
 children of the poor should be treated in the same way . 1 am 
 aware that'evils might attend this proceeding. But, in a free 
 representative government, no evil is so great as tm.uneducct' 
 tedpopulace. At every hazard, therefore, it should be put 
 down — voluntarily on the part of the parents, if practicable — 
 compulsively, if necessary. If a father can be compelled to 
 provide for his children corporeal food; why not in like man- 
 ner, food for the mind? No scheme of personal freedom, should 
 be carried so far, as to put in jeopardy the freedom and safety 
 of the Stale — which an ignorant populace unavoidably does. 
 Though the Prussian system of education is believed to be the 
 best now existing; it is not so perfectly calculated to subserve 
 the purpose for which it is designed, as was that of Persia, under 
 the control of her arbitrary government. 
 
 Should schemes of Popular education, founded on princi- 
 ciples like the foregoing, and ably administered, be established 
 throughout the country; and should the system be duly perse- 
 vered in; the nation will become enlightened and improved; 
 our liberties will be secure; and our government will remain a 
 permanent beacon-light of freedom — an object to be admired, 
 and an example to be imitated, by freemen throughout the 
 world. But if the people be allowed, from the want of 
 suitable schools, to continue ignorant, and under the sway of 
 impulse and passion, rather than of enlightened intellect and 
 sound morals, they will be fit instruments in the hands of the 
 unprincipled and ambitious; misrule will invade us; anarchy 
 and state convulsion will ensue; and the drama will close by 
 the surrender of our liberties to some victorious military adven- 
 turer. Such has been the fate of other Republics, from likv 
 
23 
 
 causes; and the same will be ours, unless we avert it, by the 
 discipline recommended. And should we fall, the victims of 
 our wanton neglect, we shall involve in our ruin the freedom, 
 rights, and interests of our race,perhaps for centuries — possibly 
 for ever. The open champions, and secret friends of liberty, 
 in every climate and country where the seed has been planted, 
 discouraged by our failure, will abandon hope, and sink into 
 inaction* Nor is it easy to conceive how any other people 
 can hereafter make an experiment of self government, under 
 auspices more* favorable and promising, than those we have 
 enjoyed. I need scarcely add, that the system of education 
 here advised, can never be established and rendered available, 
 without such an increase of the salaries of teachers as may 
 enlist men of talents in the cause, reward them for their ser- 
 vices, and secure to them in society the consideration and 
 standing, to which the dignity and usefulness of their profes- 
 sion entitles them. 
 
 As respects the moral education of the community, which 
 offers the surest guaranty of all that is most estimable in so- 
 cial, safe and valuable in political, and desirable in individual 
 life, we must look for that to other sources than popular 
 schools. In no public institutions of any description can 
 that be satisfactorily cultivated and matured — though it may 
 be aided in them. Its birth-place and only source of salutary nur- 
 ture and training, is at home — in the nursery where it should 
 begin — by the family-fireside where it should be continued — 
 and in every spot, and under the influence of every object and 
 action beneath the parental roof. For to produce the result so 
 -important in all respects,and so earnestly to be coveted and toil- 
 ed for, every family should be in itself a school of morals. And pa- 
 ren's must be the teachers. This is true, more particularly of 
 mothers, whose influence over their children, for good or evil, 
 may be rendered almost boundless. Hence the weight and sa- 
 credness of maternal responsibility, in relation to the moral train- 
 ing of children. And deep and condemnatory is the delinquency 
 of that mother, who neglects her offspring for any other engage- 
 ment short of necessity — more especially should she neglect 
 
24 
 
 them from motives of vanity and perverted taste, to run the 
 round of pleasure and fashion, and to mingle and shine among 
 the gaudes of the day. I shall only add, what every body 
 knows, that morals and manners are taught to much better 
 effect, by example than by precept — though both are requisite. 
 That parent who leads himself a correct and virtuous life, and 
 protects his children from profligate society, though he reads 
 them but rarely a moral lesson, does much more to restrain them 
 from vice and rear them to virtue, than he whose lips distil per- 
 petually, in the most solemn and persuasive accents,the sound- 
 est precepts, while his life is a tissue of irregularity and crime. 
 As it is now administered throughout the country, Popular 
 education is so defective in its elements, that the benefits de- 
 rived from it are exceedingly limited. In proof of this, it does 
 not furnish matter to fit those who receive it for any one mode 
 of life, or form of business, more than for another. It commu- 
 nicates nothing but general instruction; and even that on a 
 scale extremely contracted. It instructs those who avail 
 themselves of it in reading, writing, and ciphering, and gives 
 them perhaps a smattering of geography and bad grammar; 
 and there its lessons end. Not another element does this petty 
 scheme of instruction contain. An acquaintance with nature, 
 her powers and modes of action, which alone constitutes 
 practical and useful knowledge in the concerns of life, makes 
 no part of it. The art of observation, which is but another 
 name for a perusal of the Book of Nature, and which is the 
 most unerring means of attaining correct and solid informa- 
 tion, forms no share of the discipline practised in our popular 
 schools. Instead of being taught and encouraged to use their 
 senses, as the natural inlets of knowledge from every thing 
 around them, children are taught to believe, that books alone 
 should be the objects of their attention. 
 
 Am I told, that it is incompatible with the order and good 
 government of schools, for the pupils to do aught but attend 
 to their books, during the hours of study and recitation? I 
 reply; be it so. Let the importance then of active and accu- 
 rate observation, during hours of leisure, and throughout the 
 
25 
 
 whole of life, be impressed on them, as an indispensable element 
 of their education; and let them be disciplined in the practice 
 of it, when opportunity permits. I refer to this the more 
 earnestly, in consideration of the immense mischief, which all 
 men do, at times, both to themselves and to society, by means 
 of loose and incorrect observation, or by not observing at all. 
 To such an extent is this evil carried, that it is hazardous to 
 repose implicit confidence in reports, even when their authors 
 have been eye-witnesses of the events, and have no disposition 
 to falsify or deceive. Surely then the art of observation (which 
 is only to see, and hear, and taste, and smell, and feel things 
 as they are) cannot be too early taught to children, nor its im- 
 portance too sedulously inculcated on them, as a part of their 
 education. To show further and more forcibly the importance 
 of this injunction, let the following simple experiment be made* 
 Take, from the common walks of life, twenty men, without 
 selection, and make them spectators of the same general events 
 which shali be marked by a variety of incident and detail. 
 Within an hour after the close of the scene, let them be exan> 
 ined on their knowledge and recollection of the particulars of 
 it^andit Will be found that scarcely two of them will concur 
 in their narratives. Why? Because they have been inatten- 
 tive and inaccurate in their observation. They have not so 
 employed their perceptive powers, as to collect by them the 
 matter of information, which they are calculated and intended 
 by nature to receive. Hence the discrepancies of the testi- 
 mony often sworn to by witnesses in Courts of Justice; and 
 hence also the frequent and gross misrepresentations of the 
 substance of the discourses of public speakers, by those who 
 have heard them — but not listened to them. This evil can be 
 removed only by strictness of attention and accuracy of obser- 
 vation; which ought, I say, to be inculcated, as elements of ed- 
 ucation. 
 
 As far as I have gained a knowledge of their contents, the 
 school-books used in our primary institutions, are exceedingly 
 defective. They contain nothing that can be called appropri- 
 ate or well-defined knowledge — such knowledge, I mean, as is 
 4 
 
26 
 
 calculated to qualify for business those who receive it, by its 
 affinity to any definite and practical end. The matter con- 
 tained in them is fitted much better for momentary amusement 
 and pastime, than for useful instruction. Yet such are the 
 constitution and character of the minds of children, even 
 at an early age, that it is easy to find subjects that will impart 
 to them both pleasure and useful information at the same 
 time. 
 
 Such, however, are not the subjects treated of in the tor- 
 rents of juvenile school-books now gushing from the press, un- 
 der popular and imposing titles, and with pompous recommen- 
 datory certificates, to impose on the ignorant and unthinking, 
 for the benefit of the artful. Those subjects, as well as the 
 manner in which they are handled, address themselves to the 
 feelings much more than to the intellect. 
 
 Nor, apart from books intended for education in schools, is 
 there any hazard in asserting, that the abuse of the press, as 
 respects both the quantity and quality of its general issues, 
 constitutes one of the most formidable evils of the time. It 
 is a fountain, that seems inexhaustible, of heterogeneous mat- 
 ter, a large portion of which not only ministers to frivolity, 
 and vitiates the taste, but tends to demoralize the mind of the 
 community. It pampers and strengthens the animal passions 
 much more than the moral sentiments, or the intellectual fac- 
 ulties, and thereby directly panders to vice. And all this, to 
 inflate the vanity of conceited scribblers, and gratify the cu- 
 pidity of speculating publishers. For there is abroad a spirit 
 of speculation, in book-making, almost as flagrant, as that which 
 maddens the land-jobbing, stock-breeding and cotton-planting 
 part of the community — and it is infinitely more pernicious. 
 With all my admiration of the talents, and veneration of the 
 virtues of Sir Walter Scott, I am compelled to believe, that he 
 has unintentionally done more mischief to English literature, 
 and its readers, than any other man that has ever lived. An d 
 Bulwer is pursuing a similar career. 
 
 Those two mighty authors arc the parents of the clustering 
 ■warms of novelists, romancers, and tale-tellers, that are so 
 
27 
 
 fearfully overspreading Great Britain and America. And, for 
 every writer of any merit they have given birth to, they have 
 produced by the score, if not by the hundred, (with Byron, 
 however, to assist them,) rhymers, and prosers, whose works 
 should be burnt, by the common executioner! The frost is 
 not more fatal to the latter harvest, than are the productions, 
 of some of those writers, to whatever is praiseworthy in mo- 
 rals, or substantial and tasteful in polite literature. But to re- 
 turn from this digression. 
 
 I have said that the selection of school-books for the prima- 
 ry schools of our country, is injudicious. In one respect I 
 consider it peculiarly so. i allude to the almost universal use 
 of the Bible as one of them. 
 
 Under a calm and unprejudiced inspection of the effects 
 produced, by introducing that volume into popular schools, as 
 a common lesson-book, I feel persuaded that the impropriety 
 of the practice cannot fail to be satisfactorily perceived. The 
 Bible should be read only to be venerated and loved, and for 
 the improvement of the readers in morals and piety. But how 
 can veneration be produced in children for, or instruction and 
 improvement be received by them from, a book, the meaning 
 of many, perhaps most parts of which they cannot compre- 
 hend, and over which they are compelled to toil and puzzle, 
 amidst the innumerable disagreeabilities of a crowded school- 
 room — the monotonous din of their school-fellows mumbling 
 over their hated tasks, in every discordant key-note, from low- 
 est base, to highest treble — the angry frowrs and threats 
 of the master — the punishment inflicted by him — the 
 cries and sobs of the chastised — and the general pan- 
 ic and sympathy produced by the infliction — are not 
 scenes like these, which are daily occurrences in country 
 schools, calculated to produce any sentiments rather than 
 those of veneration and love toward the exercises associated 
 with them? Most assuredly they are. Aversion and dislike 
 are a much more natural product of such causes. Bitter asso- 
 ciations beget bitter remembrances, and extend almost neces- 
 sarily to all connected circumstances, as well as to the grounds 
 and elements of events. Even the close, perhaps it may be 
 
28 
 
 called the gross familiarity, which children contract for the 
 Bible, by thumbing it, soiling it, cat-earing it, and tossing it 
 about rudely and wantonly in schools, detracts of necessity 
 from the regard and veneration, in which it should be held by 
 them. That volume should never be placed in the hands of 
 the young, for familiar perusal, until their reflecting and moral 
 faculties are sufficiently developed and matured, to fit them to 
 understand and feel its value and its sanctity. Nor is this all. 
 Even its binding should be more than usually neat and hand- 
 some, if not rich and costly, as a token of the preciousness 
 and importance of its contents. And it should be read by the 
 youthful at first, under the supervision, and accompanied by 
 the comments, of suitable instructors. Let the Bible be intro- 
 duced to the knowledge and familiarity of the young, under 
 precautions and associations like these; and I hazard nothing 
 in asserting, that the sentiment of veneration for it will be 
 greatly increased. That Mahometans venerate the Alcoran 
 much more highly than christians do the Bible, cannot be 
 questioned. Nor is it doubtful, that this is owing, in no small 
 degree, to the respectful and solemn manner, in which they are 
 obliged to handle it; and the superb binding in which it usually 
 appears. To make a common school-book of it, they would 
 deem almost as unholy, as open apostacy from the Prophet and 
 the Faith. 
 
 I have said already, and now repeat, that public seats of 
 learning, whatever be their grade, are not the places, where, 
 either morality or religion can be successfully inculcated. 
 By withholding the Bible from them, therefore, as a school- 
 book, nothing will be, in these respects, forfeited or lost. On 
 the contrary, much may, in my opinion, be saved and gained, 
 as far as a regard for the Scriptures is concerned. For these 
 reasons, and others which might be offered, I am constrained 
 to consider the arguments, urged by many learned and excel- 
 lent individuals in defence of making a "school-book" of the 
 Bible, groundless and invaad. 
 
 That the elements of common education, in its present con- 
 dition, are scanty and defective, and that the books of instruc- 
 
29 
 
 lion used in our primary schools, may be greatly improved, 
 has been already asserted, and will not, I think, be denied or 
 held doubtful. In the United States, where there are but few 
 large hereditary possessions, and where of course idleness and 
 a comfortable subsistence are hardly compatible with each 
 other, all persons are educated for some contemplated end — I 
 mean for some given walk or occupation in life, where an inde- 
 pendence may be acquired by industry and care. It is reason- 
 able, therefore, that, as far as may be practicable, they should 
 receive, as a part of even their early education, such know- 
 ledge as may be most relevant to the business they mean to 
 pursue, and such as accords best with the state of society, 
 where they design to reside. 
 
 Of this description, as a general rule, is the knowledge of 
 domestic, agricultural, and horticultural economy; which in- 
 cludes branches that children, at an early age, can easily un- 
 derstand; and which, by skilful management, may be render- 
 ed exceedingly useful and attractive to them. So may every 
 other form of knowledge, which embraces visible and interest- 
 ing objects of nature. For, when correctly and judiciously 
 delineated, nature is always pleasing to childhood. Works on 
 these branches, prepared for schools, should contain appropri- 
 ate wood-cuts or lithographs, and comprise so much of botany 
 and natural history, as may be necessary to give a suitable 
 acquaintance with domestic animals and plants — their appear- 
 ance, characters, habits, manners, mode of rearing, training, 
 and general improvement, marks of distinction between the 
 more and less perfect and valuable of them; and such other 
 points respecting them, as may be most pleasing and useful. 
 Nor should other leading matters, which I have not time to 
 specify, but which will readily present themselves to intelligent 
 inquirers, in domestic, agricultural, and horticultural economy, 
 be neglected. To this might well be added some account of 
 the most interesting and useful wild animals and plants, that 
 inhabit our own woods and waters, and are made to contrib- 
 ute to our subsistence or comforts. A boy skilfully educated 
 in this way, will be better prepared, at fourteen, to enter on 
 
30 
 
 the business of common country life, than a young man, at 
 Jour-and-tiventy, furnished only with the common school know- 
 ledge of the present day. The propriety and necessity of 
 giving to all boys, as a part of their education, some know- 
 ledge of agricultural affairs, in the United States, are the more 
 obvious, in consideration of the fact, that, not only is agricul- 
 ture the great business of the country, but that many resort 
 to it ultimately, who had been previously engaged in other 
 pursuits. Our agriculture, moreover, compared to that of 
 certain other nations, is crude and defective. We can hardly 
 run to excess, therefore, in any schemes we may devise, to en- 
 courage the spirit and cherish the love of it. 
 
 For boys possessed of a native turn and endowed with tal- 
 ents for mechanical pursuits, corresponding provisions may 
 easily be made. School-books, judiciously prepared, contain- 
 ing familiar expositions of the simplest, and most intelligible 
 principles of mechanics, illustrated by suitable plates or prints, 
 may be placed in their hands with propriety and advantage. 
 And it will soon appear, that whatever may be their habits 
 as to other studies, they will be devoted to this. To meet the 
 early discovered genius of others, whatever bent it may take, 
 kindred arrangements may be readily made. And here the 
 benefits of Phrenology will become invaluable. 
 
 Thus, to the usual forms of elementary instruction, which 
 common-school education every where imparts, let it unite 
 such special forms, as may aid in fitting pupils for definite pur- 
 suits, and the improvement in it will be important. This will 
 give it an object and an aim, which it does not now possess; 
 and without which its defects are palpable. Such are some 
 of the principles, which reason seems to prescribe on this sub- 
 ject; and experience and reflection will furnish the details. 
 
 Lessons as well as examples for the discouragement and 
 prevention of falsehood, profane swearing, and intemperance, 
 cannot be too early inculcated, or too earnestly impressed on 
 the minds of youth. For it is on the prevention of these evils, 
 and not on their cure, that reliance can be safely and reasona- 
 bly placed. Among the children of the United States, the two 
 
3i 
 
 first named vices are disgracefully prevalent. The first of the 
 three more especially may almost be said to reign as an.e^z- 
 demic in the morals of our land. Children are not instructed 
 as they should be in the sacredness of truth, and the culpabili- 
 ty of violating it, whether by actions or words. A leading rea- 
 son of this is, the dissoluteness of adults on the same subject. For 
 what but gross practical falsehood are the want of punctuality 
 in engagements, insincere professions, breeches of promise, and 
 the countless forms of overreaching and deception in barter and 
 trade? And such practices are revoltingly fashionable. School- 
 books, I say, ought to be prepared, with lessons condemnatory 
 of these vices, which should be solemnly commented on by 
 teachers to their pupils. And, as already stated, as soon as 
 children can be made to comprehend the subject, they should, 
 as a part of their education, be put on their guard against the 
 manifold falsehoods and devices, by which demagogues and 
 their satellites may defraud, them, first of their rights, and ulti- 
 mately of their freedom. 
 
 One suggestion more shall finish my remarks, under the pres- 
 ent head of my subject. In every form of education, for what- 
 ever end it may be intended, lessons should be given, and en- 
 graven on the mind by illustration and example, of the para- 
 mount importance of practising industry, and economizing time. 
 Without this, nothing truly great and useful can ever be 
 achieved. Time is infinitely the most valuable of our posses- 
 sions. Yet how lightly is it estimated, and how wantonly 
 squandered! — especially by the youthful! Nor, as relates to 
 this point, are parents and teachers free from heavy and mani- 
 fold delinquencies. While children are strictly cautioned by 
 them to be careful of their clothes, books, and pocket-money; 
 they are but rarely lessoned on the saving and correct applica- 
 tion of their time. Yet, compared to the latter, the former are 
 but baubles, unworthy of regard. It is the saving and virtu- 
 ous employment of time that make a Titus or a Washington; 
 while the waste, and the vicious use of it make an Arnold and 
 a Cataline. 
 
 Of a Liberal education the elements are much more nurner- 
 
32 
 
 ous, and of a higher order. In their full extent, they embrace 
 the' entire Science of nature, united to such a command of 
 language, as is sufficient for all the purposes of writing and 
 speech. I mean of course the higher purposes as well as the 
 lower; for no man is a liberal scholar, whatever may be his 
 other attainments, who has not a perfect knowledge, critical, 
 philosophical, and practical, of his native tongue. Though an 
 Englishman or an American be steeped to the core in Latin, 
 Greek and Hebrew, Syriac and even Sanscrit; and in every 
 modern language of continental Europe; and in all the abo- 
 riginal tongues of the New World; if he be deficient in En- 
 glish, he has but a spurious claim to liberal scholarship. Nor 
 can I think favourably of either the taste or patriotism, judg- 
 ment or self-respect of him, whatever may be his name or na- 
 tion, who wastes his time in an engrossing pursuit of foreign 
 languages, whether ancient or modern, and neglects that, in 
 which he lisped his earliest wants and wishes, and received the 
 earliest soothings of affection. Our "mother tongue," because 
 it is our "mother tongue," bears to us a relation, which de- 
 serves to be held sacred. In the sentiments of regard and at- 
 tachment, which it claims from us, it is virtually identified with 
 the land of our birth. Any defection from it in favour of an- 
 other tongue might well be deemed treason. 
 
 As far as language is concerned, then, a thorough knowledge 
 and command of English is the highest qualification of an 
 American Scholar. It is the choicest element in his literary 
 chaplet, and its attainment should constitute the height of his 
 ambition. But, owing to an antiquated, and I think a 
 perverted, condition of things, it is much to be lamented 
 that such is not the prevailing sentiment. Too many 
 American scholars pride themselves more on a mere smat- 
 tering in the languages, in which Demosthenes and Cicero 
 declaimed and wrote, than they would do on the most tho- 
 rough acquaintance with their native tongue — that tongue, in 
 which I fearlessly assert, that modern poets have equalled the 
 ancient ones, and in which British and American orators have, 
 in some respects, surpassed the boasted models of Greece and 
 
33 
 
 Rome. How heretical soever this may be pronounced" by the 
 adorers of the ancients, all the facts that bear on the subject 
 proclaim it to be true. Yet, in certain coteries that call 
 themselves classical. Busby and Parr are all but idolized, be- 
 cause they wrote in Greek and Latin better than in English! 
 But more of this hereafter. 
 
 I have said that a Liberal education includes the whole sci- 
 ence of nature, as far as it is developed. It comprises there- 
 fore a knowledge of the properties of matter both living and 
 dead, with their relations, powers, and influences; of the gen- 
 eral principles and laws, by which that portion of material 
 creation subject to our scrutiny is actuated and governed; and 
 of so much of practical and experimental details, as may be., 
 necessary for illustration and proof, in further researches. 
 Nor does it stop here. It embraces also an acquaintance 
 with mind, so far as relates to its faculties and functions, 
 their connexion with living organized matter, and the forms of 
 action resulting from the union. The following then may be 
 regarded as a catalogue in part of the leading elements of this 
 caste of education, stated somewhat in the order in which, 
 from the progressive development of the mental faculties, 
 from infancy to adult age, they may be most advantageously 
 studied. 
 
 The knowledge of language, and a free and correct com- 
 mand of it in reading, writing, and speech, constitute the com- 
 mon foundation of every sort of intellectual discipline. The 
 reason is, that language is the main channel for the reception, 
 and the only one for the usual communication, of other kinds 
 of knowledge. 
 
 Arithmetic, and the lower branches of Mathematics may 
 be properly enough studied at an early period of pupilage. 
 So may geography, mineralogy, botany, and natural history; 
 and, under a proper arrangement, these may be rendered de- 
 lightful to children, and no less so to those more mature in 
 years. So may every other branch of knowledge, in the ac- 
 quisition of which the perceptive faculties are chiefly concern- 
 ed. Of this description are chemistry, the experimental 
 5 
 
34 
 
 and demonstrative part of natural philosophy, and so much of 
 astronomy, as does not include abstruse calculations. Of the 
 same rank, and suitable as studies at the same period, are music 
 and drawing to those who possess the requisite faculties, trav- 
 els, voyages, biography, and so much of civil, military, and po- 
 litical history, as relates chiefly to events and descriptions. 
 Book-keeping, chronology, and such other branches as involve 
 dates, facts, numbers, and details, constitute also at this time 
 appropriate subjects of Liberal Education. 
 
 A knowledge of these branches, and a few other?, which a 
 want of time forbids me to enumerate, being attained, and the 
 higher faculties of the pupil being sufficiently matured, a cor- 
 responding class of studies may succeed. These lie within 
 the region of philosophy, and call for the exercise of reason 
 and judgment, in those who would master them. In more 
 definite terms, they embrace relations of the higher and more 
 scientific order, generalizations and abstractions, and are the 
 special objects of the reflecting faculties. Of these faculties, 
 Causality, which traces the connexion of cause and effect, 
 climbing the chain of past events, and descending prophetically 
 the links of the future, is the chief. It is that faculty, in a 
 particular manner, which gives to the mind of the ripened 
 •age, profundity and wisdom, and an extensive reach into com- 
 ing occurrences; and which enables him, turning backward, 
 to "look through Nature up to Nature's God." It was that 
 which gave to Socrates and Aristotle, Bacon and Franklin 
 their never-dying renown. 
 
 At this period of life, moreover, the moral organs complete 
 their development, and their corresponding faculties become 
 matured for action. Hence the fitness of the individual to 
 enter on the study of moral science, and to improve himself in 
 practical morality and virtue. In brief, he is now a rational 
 and moral being, and is held responsible as such to his country 
 and his fellow men; which, during his causal and ethical ?ion- 
 age, if the phrase be admissible, was not the case. 
 
 Some of the principal elements of Liberal education to be 
 now incorporated with it, are the principles of natural philoso- 
 
35 
 
 phy, and the philosophy of history, civil, political, and military, 
 with mathematics and astronomy, in all their departments.. 
 To these add metaphysics and logic, as far as they deserve to 
 be cultivated as distinct branches, physical, which might be 
 better termed philosophical geography, political economy, and 
 the science of government — in this country, the science of 
 free representative government, without which Liberal Educa- 
 tion would forfeits itname. Now is also the time for cultiva- 
 ting anthropology as a science — for studying I mean with high- 
 er and more philosophical views the structure, functions, and 
 capabilities of the human body, as subservient to the promotion 
 of health and strength, and the prevention of disease, and for 
 forming an acquainance with human rights, and with the new 
 scheme of mental philosophy, under the heretofore scoffed-at 
 name of Phrenology. For that that once derided, abused, and 
 anathematized branch will yet become a portion of Liberal Edu- 
 cation, is as certain, as any other coming event. Add to this, 
 a knowledge of the philosophical history of man, as far as it is 
 made out, that some acquaintance may be had with the varieties 
 of our race, and reasonable views be formed of their relative 
 standing, rights, and privileges^ participators of a common na- 
 ture. Nor is this all. The study of Philology, including philoso- 
 phical grammar, criticism, rhetoric and eloquence, poetry, and 
 polite literature generally, with the art of composition, consti- 
 tutes now appropriate exercises. The latter especially is of 
 immense consequence — much more than it is generally allowed 
 to be — because without it, pushed to an extent far beyond what 
 is usual, no American Scholar can have a competent command 
 of his native tongue, or can use it with that elegance and 
 semi-omnipotency,of which talents and practice can render it 
 the instrument. By skilful and persevering discipline in this 
 art, hundreds of Americans might become, with certainty, 
 Jeremy Taylors and Swifts, Bolingbrokes and Addisons; 
 whereas, at present, we have scarcely perhaps one! 
 
 The last element I shall add, which may be safely announced 
 as both splendid and important, is the philosophf of Nature, 
 as far as it is developed, usually called the "Philosophy of 
 
36 
 
 Natural History," moulded into the form of Natural religion 
 — unfolding, I mean, the grandeur of creation, with its exquis- 
 ite workmanship, faultless adaptation, and beneficent intent, 
 manifesting the perfections of the Deity, in its production — 
 his omnipotence and omnipresence, omniscience and immacu- 
 late goodness, — and eliciting toward him, through that channel, 
 the gratitude, adoration, and homage, which are due to him 
 from our race. Subjoin to this, a knowledge of the principles 
 of Revealed Religion, free from the dogmas and perversions 
 of sectarism, and from the embittered and intolerant spirit they 
 engender, and the work will be sufficiently complete, for all 
 the purposes of cultivated life. 
 
 One of the£| purposes is to furnish a suitable foundation for 
 the learned professions; for it will be seen, that I have not ta- 
 ken professional knowledge expressly into my estimate. I do 
 not however hesitate to remark, that the learned professions 
 in our country will never occupy the lofty and substantial 
 ground that ought to belong to them, and on which it should be 
 the pride and resolution of their members to place them, until 
 they be erected on the basis of a Liberal Education. Profession- 
 al knowledge, at the present day, destitute as it is of the prepar- 
 atory attainments which ought to attach to it, is too meager and 
 cheap to be highly estimable, useful, or honorable. The road 
 to profession is not only too short in the United States; it runs 
 through a barren and uncultivated region. Nor do appearan- 
 ces bespeak a disposition in the country to lengthen or enrich 
 it. Such is the eagerness, with which young men hurry into 
 professional and public life, and such the entire disregard of 
 the time for elegant, refined, and substantial knowledge, that 
 an attempt to enrich and perfect education, so as to render it 
 what it should be, seems all but hopeless. That being the case, 
 it is but reasonable that it be encumbered with no unnecessary, 
 or superfluous element. In a special manner, none such should 
 be crowded into it, to the exclusion of others more useful and 
 essential. 
 
 This brings me not unnaturally, to offer a few remarks on 
 a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, as one of the 
 
3t 
 
 elements of a Liberal education. On this subject it is my lot 
 to differ in sentiment from a vast majority of my most able and 
 learned contemporaries, not only in this country, but through- 
 out Christendom. I am not unapprized, therefore, of the oppo- 
 sition I am to encounter, the hazard I am to run, and the un- 
 kind feelings I may possibly awaken, even in some of the indi- 
 viduals in this assembly, by an open discussion of it. But the 
 topic being abundantly ripe, for discussion, 1 shall not shrink 
 from it, however far it may be from being an enviable task. 
 The responsibility of opposing public opinion, when deemed 
 erroneous, must be met by some one; and I am perfectly con- 
 tent to bear my share of it. All I ask, on the present occasion, 
 which, from the courtesy of my audience, I am sure I shall 
 receive, is a patient hearing, and an impartial examination of 
 the thoughts I may express. 
 
 Treading as Tarn on precarious ground, 1 am peculiarly so- 
 licitous not to be misunderstood, either in the views I may 
 present, or in my reasons for presenting them. My sensitive- 
 ness and anxiety on this point are the more intense, from a live- 
 ly recollection, that, when speaking on the same topic, on a 
 former occasion, I was misunderstood, and grossly misrepre- 
 sented. From the sentiments I then uttered, I have been de- 
 clared to be hostile to the study of Greek and Latin. This 
 is a mistake. I am hostile only to the misapplication and abuse 
 of that study — to an excessive consumption of time in it, in 
 some cases, and to the pursuit of it, in others, to the neglect 
 of more useful and important studies. I am opposed, more- 
 over, to the compulsory study of Greek and Latin, by all the 
 pupils in a seminary, without discrimination; while it is obvious 
 that, to some of them, the task is irksome and vexatious even 
 to distress; and that with all their industry and toil, their pro- 
 gress in it is slow, discreditable and mortifying to them. In 
 such cases, let Phrenology be consulted, and it will show, that 
 the pupils thus foiled and perplexed, are palpably deficient in 
 the organ of Language, and can never become ready and re- 
 spectable linguists, by any kind or degree of discipline. As 
 well may an attempt be made to form a musician out of a 
 
38 
 
 youth who has no ear (more properly, no organ) for music; 
 or to make an expert opera dancer or tumbler, of one who is 
 deformed in his person and limbs, rickety in his bones, and 
 feeble in his muscles. 
 
 Yet may the youth, thus disqualified from making progress in 
 the knowledge of the dead languages, have splendid talents for 
 other studies, and may rise to renown in them. Such precise- 
 ly was the case with Newton, who fell behind most of his 
 school fellows and college mates, in his classical studies, near- 
 ly as far as he surpassed them, in numerical calculation, math- 
 ematics, and astronomy. While he was sometimes called 
 "the dunce and the calf" in the former pursuit, he was a mira- 
 cle in the latter. Other similar instances might be cited in 
 abundance. In truth they are so common, that school boys, 
 are familiar with them. 
 
 It is a dictate of common sense, as well as of experience, 
 that youths should be educated, not altogether according to the 
 notions of their parents, guardians and instructors; but ac- 
 cording to their own talents, and somewhat in accordance 
 with their tastes, and the pursuits to which, as adults, they pur- 
 pose to devote themselves. Let those, therefore, whom nature 
 has endowed with a peculiar fitness, and a predominant love 
 for the study of languages, indulge their inclination, and be- 
 come polyglots, and even pedants, if they please. For the 
 knowledge of the dead languages makes more pedants, than all 
 other sorts of knowledge. But let youths, who are differently 
 endowed, pursue a different course. Let their minds be main- 
 ly directed to those branches, for which they are most pecu- 
 liarly qualified. It is thus and thus alone, that the educated 
 portion of the community can attain to the highest eminence 
 and usefulness, for which their faculties have fitted them. A 
 contrary course has often driven young men from colleges and 
 universities, who, had they been indulged in their favourite 
 studies, and liberated from those toward which they had a na- 
 tive and unconquerable aversion, might have become orna- 
 ments to science, and benefactors of their race. And I ven- 
 Uire to say, that toiling and puzzling over Greek and Latin has 
 
39 
 
 disgusted and discouraged more young men, and frustrated 
 their education and hopes of distinction, than any or all other 
 forms of study. Indeed I have rarely seen a youth driven 
 from college by his dislike of any particular exercise, other 
 than the study of Greek and Latin — some abstruse branch of 
 mathematics perhaps excepted. One reason of this is, that 
 when a youth has no taste for the dead languages, he consults 
 his judgment on the subject, and that tells him that the study 
 of them is useless. And as respects himself, it tells him truly; 
 for to him, with his unfitness and aversion, it is useless; and 
 can never be turned by him to any purpose of either profit or 
 honour. As regards other sorts of knowledge, the case is dif- 
 ferent. Though they are not exactly to his taste, he notwith- 
 standing sees that he can employ them usefully in after life, 
 and therefore labours cheerfully to attain them. It may be 
 observed, as a general and important truth, that a strong and 
 steady aversion in a pupil toward any given form of study, is 
 testimony of a high order, that his capacity for it is weak. He 
 should not be forced to pursue it, therefore, except for reasons 
 unusually cogent. His aversion sufficiently discloses the cause, 
 in manifesting his unfitness. It is the declaration of nature to 
 that effect. The converse of this is equally true. It is a fun- 
 damental principle in the constitution of our minds, that if we 
 have strong attachments to given studies, we have correspond- 
 ing capacities for them. Nothing in our nature is more certain, 
 than that we take pleasure in the exercise of our master facul- 
 ties — and the reverse. 
 
 But I have other and yet stronger objections, not indeed to 
 the study of the "Dead Languages," (for to that, in given cases, 
 I say, I do not object,) but to the extravagant and deceptive 
 views that are entertained and propagated, on the score of its 
 usefulness. A few of these notions, therefore, I shall briefly 
 examine. 
 
 It is asserted that the study of Greek and Latin, like that of 
 mathematics, is an excellent, if not an essential mode of exer- 
 cise, to strengthen all the faculties of the mind, and fit them for 
 the performance of other tasks. 
 
40 
 
 This allegation (for it is nothing more) involves two mistakes. 
 Even the study of mathematics does not exercise and strength- 
 en all the faculties of the mind. It strengthens indeed but a 
 very few of them* and forms therefore only a partial mode of 
 mental cultivation and improvement. These few are chiefly 
 Number, Form, Size, Comparison, and Causality — five only 
 out of thirty-six ; leaving the other thirty-one unexercised, and 
 of course unimproved. No one will contend that a devotion 
 to mathematics improves the votary in the faculties of Con- 
 structiveness, Tune, Time, Colour, Locality, Individuality, 
 Eventuality, Wit, Imitation, or in any of his moral ox ?*eligious 
 faculties. Did time permit me to adduce facts and furnish de- 
 tails, these truths might be easily established beyond contro- 
 versy. Many excellent mathematicians are exceedingly de- 
 fective in the general compass and powers of the mind. One 
 of the ablest practical mathematicians I am now acquainted 
 with, is peculiarly limited in his other faculties. 
 
 Much farther is the study of Greek and Latin from exercis- 
 ing and invigorating all the faculties. The study of them, as 
 mere languages, exercises the faculty of Language ; and there 
 the matter ends. That exercise moreover may be derived as 
 well from the study of modern as of ancient tongues — from 
 the study of English and German, as of Greek and Latin. If 
 I am mistaken in this, the mistake can be corrected; and I will 
 regard that man as, at once, my instructor and obliger, who 
 will kindly perform the acceptable, office. But in doing so, he 
 must use other means than mere assertion, which has been hith- 
 erto exclusively employed. He must pursue a course of rigid 
 analysis, deriving his facts and arguments either from the na- 
 ture of the case, or from the resources of actual experience. It 
 will be incumbent on him to make it clearly appear, that the 
 study of Greek and Latin exercises more of the human facul- 
 ties than the study of other tongues. He must prove more- 
 over that there exists between language and ideas something 
 more than a conventional relation. In a word; to sustain his 
 case satisfactorily, he must make good an absurdity — that the 
 exercise of a single faculty of the mind is tantamount to thrr.r- 
 
41 
 
 ercise of many or all of the faculties. Such is the task; but 
 where is the champion who will attempt its performance? 
 
 Language is but the garb and drapery of ideas, and the 
 means by which they are made manifest, and communicated 
 from one mind to another. Articulate and written speech is 
 altogether artificial, while ideas are the immediate product of 
 nature, art having no more concern in their origin, than it has 
 in the origin of fruit and flowers. To contend as many do, 
 that any form of words, as such, can produce ideas, and invig- 
 orate all the idea-forming faculties, is as palpable an error as 
 man can commit, or fancy conceive. . Were the notion true, 
 every individual would understand every language when first 
 heard, and be instructed by listening to it. The words address- 
 ed to him would impart the ideas they were formed to repre- 
 sent. And this would be as true of one language as of another 
 — of the language of the Winnebagoes, as of that of the Greeks. 
 Language being the mere representative of ideas, but recalls 
 those that have been previously formed. It generates none. 
 As well may it be contended that the apparel generates the 
 man who wears it. For language, I repeat, is but the apparel 
 of thought. 
 
 There is in all ideas, moreover, or rather in their sources, a 
 native fitness to exercise, gratify, and strengthen the faculties 
 to which they correspond, as language strengthens its faculty. 
 Thus tune gratifies and strengthens the faculty of Tune, colour 
 the faculty of Colour, single objects the faculty of Individuali- 
 ty, facts or occurrences the faculty of Eventuality, and the 
 relation of cause and effect, the faculty of Causality. Neither 
 of these sources or agents, however, can exercise or improve 
 any faculty but that to which it is immediately appropriate. 
 Tune cannot excite to action the faculty of Colour; colour 
 has no influence over the faculty of Eventuality; objects them- 
 selves, independently of their relations, give no exercise to 
 Causality, nor has the mere study of language the slightest 
 effect in giving action and strength to either of the faculties 
 just cited; or to any faculty but that to which it immediately 
 
 belongs. 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 •I fearlessly appeal to any scholar, whether by toiling and 
 puzzling, till his head has ached and his body reeled, over 
 some knotty sentence in Homer, Pindar, Horace, or Juve- 
 nal, he has ever found his mind refreshed and brightened 
 as to other studies — or improved and informed in any respect, 
 except as to the interpretation of the passages he was examin- 
 ing? And if he be candid and independent, I confidently as- 
 sert, that his answer will be no! He will even add — or I will 
 take his place, and add for him, from my own experience, that 
 such a scene of labour and perplexity, not unfrequently so con- 
 fuses and muddles the brain, as to unfit it for a time, for any fur- 
 ther intellectual action. And it never invigorates or in any 
 way improves it. It is the substance of a book, and the man- 
 ner in which it is handled, not the language in which it is writ- 
 ten, that exercises and strengthens the principal faculties of the 
 mind. The works of Euclid are as instructive, under an En- 
 glish translation, as they were in their original Greek attire. 
 And so are the productions of Aristotle and Plato, Cicero and 
 Seneca, Nor is the assertion less correct, when applied to 
 the Novum Organum of Bacon, the Principia of Newton, or to 
 any other work written originally in an ancient tongue. The 
 Traite de Mecanique Celeste of Laplace, moreover, loses no- 
 thing of its instructivcness and sublimity, by being clothed in 
 a suitable English dress. So certain is it that no one language 
 exercises the intellectual faculties more profitably than another. 
 All this is unquestionably true, if the translation from one 
 language to another be good. And it will hardly be contend- 
 ed, that every smatterer in the dead languages, or in French, 
 can render the works referred to into better English, than 
 even a common translator — much more an able one. Away 
 then with the assertion, that the study of Greek and Latin 
 improves all the human faculties! Such a notion is at open 
 war with every principle of mental philosophy, and is unwor- 
 thy of an enlightened era — or an enlightened individual! 
 When teachers shall have learnt to invigorate the sense of 
 vision, by the mere exercise oi hearings the cense of hearing, 
 by the exercise of smelling, the sense of -TUrHi/tr^ by the ex- 
 
ereise of touch, or to invigorate either of the other senses, by 
 the exercise of taste, then, and not " before, let them talk of 
 strengthening all the other faculties of the mind, by exercising 
 that of Language, in the study of Greek and Latin! Or, let 
 the same project be conceived and its practicability asserted, 
 when horsemanship shall have been taught, by the exercise of 
 the pen in writing, or of the pencil in painting! Nothing in 
 the philosophy of man is more certain, than that each faculty 
 of his mind has its specific mode of acting, and an appropriate 
 and special subject in nature to act on; that no one faculty 
 can act on the subject of another; nor can a faculty be 
 strengthened in any other way, than by the exercise of itself. 
 The faculty of Tune is improved only by the cultivation of 
 music, the faculty of Number, by practice in calculation, the 
 faculty of Eventuality, by an attention to facts, the faculty of 
 Causality, by tracing the connexion between cause and effect, 
 and the faculty of Language, by the study of language. ' But, 
 by merely studying language, no one will learn to reason, play 
 on a musical instrument, attain eminence in arithmetic, or paint 
 a portrait. The truth of these remarks is proved by the fact, 
 that the best linguists in college, who seem to acquire the 
 knowledge of language by intuition andinstinct, are often the 
 worst arithmeticians and geographers, composuists and logi- 
 cians. 
 
 But, say my opponents, without a knowledge of Greek and 
 Latin, no one can have- a thorough understanding of English. 
 That no one can comprehend the etymology of a large portion 
 of the English language, without an acquaintance with Greek 
 and Latin, as fully as with it,- is not denied. That however is 
 of no avail in the present discussion. To be acquainted with 
 the etymology of words, and so to understand their meaning 
 and uses, as to apply them with readiness and correctness, 
 elegance and force, to all the requisite purposes of speech, are 
 different and independent attributes of mind. Hundreds of 
 individuals, familiar with the derivation of the English tongue, 
 are unable to use it with any degree of fluency or effect, in 
 either conversation, writing, or public address; while, on the 
 
44 
 
 contrary, thousands who are utter strangers to its derivation, 
 employ it, in every form of communication, with great correct- 
 ness, eloquence and power. And such are the only knowledge 
 and command of it, that are 'either useful or desirable in the 
 business of life. No man under the impulse of sprightly con- 
 versation or keen repartee, the flush of composition, or the 
 impassioned excitement of public debate, thinks of the roots of 
 the language he employs. Thus to divide his attention, would 
 be to fail in his effort. The correct, and definite meaning of 
 his words, with a choice selection and ready command of them, 
 is all he requires. And that he can attain, without a know- 
 ledge of Greek and Latin, as fully as with it. Were I to say 
 that a critical acquaintance with Greek and Latin may even 
 mislead a scholar respecting the meaning of an English word, 
 there would be nothing in the assertion paradoxical or unsound. 
 The signification attached to many English words, by custom, 
 which is the law of speech, is materially different from the sig- 
 nification of their Greek and Latin roots. The classical schol- 
 ar, therefore, recollecting their original meaning, and conform- 
 ing to it, in his employment of them, will sometimes go astray ; 
 while the mere English scholar, adhering to the custom of the 
 best writers, will use them correctly. 
 
 Do you ask me, how a mere English scholar can acquire a 
 perfect knowledge and command of his native tongue? I re- 
 ply, that the process is equally plain and certain. Let him 
 render himself familiar with his English dictionary, his En- 
 glish grammar, and the writings of the best English and Amer- 
 ican authors; let him become equally familiar with the style 
 of the best public speakers of every description, whether in 
 the pulpit, at the bar, or in popular assemblies; frequent the 
 most cultivated and intellectual society, to which he can have 
 access, and participate in its conversation; and, above all, let 
 him practice perseveringly the arts of composition and speak- 
 ing, employing in every case his best style and manner, and 
 striving to improve them — let him do this, under a confirmed 
 resolution to excel, and his task is achieved. He will become 
 according to his native endowments, an able and elegant 
 
45 
 
 colloquist, writer, or public speaker, or all of them combined, 
 without the slightest knowledge of the dead languages. This, 
 and not the study of Greek and Latin, is the true and only- 
 way to acquire a thorough knowledge, and a ready command 
 of the English tongue. On the contrary; be the discipline 
 here referred to neglected, and those who are called British and 
 American scholars, may pour by day over the venerated 
 tomes of Greek and Roman lore, and pillow their heads on 
 them and dream of them by night — they may become soaked 
 and embalmed in the dead languages, and be novices still in 
 the knowledge and employment of their mother tongue. Sun- 
 dry examples of this kind have been known to me. 
 
 Time was when a knowledge of Greek and Latin was ne- 
 cessary to a thorough knowledge of English; because the lat- 
 ter language was in an immature condition, and dependent on 
 the former. But that time has gone by. The English lan- 
 guage is out of its minority ', and amply prepared to set up for it- 
 self. Our English dictionaries and grammars, though they may 
 be yet greatly improved, are much more full and perfect, than 
 our Greek and Latin ones, by the aid of which those languages 
 are learnt. In like manner, English is also already learnt by 
 similar aid from its own dictionaries and grammars; a mode of 
 studying it, which may be likewise yet improved. Of English lit- 
 erature the same is true. In the extent, variety, and value of its 
 matter, as well as in vigour and profundity of thought, it sur- 
 passes all that antiquity can boast. Nor are numerous speci- 
 mens of it, that might be cited, at all inferior in beauty, sub- 
 limity, and exquisite finish. Were I to say, that in some of 
 these latter qualities also it is superior to any thing bequeathed 
 to us by Greece or Rome, the assertion could be backed by 
 powerful testimony. It is nothing but an idolatrous venera- 
 tion of the ancients, co-operating with a sentiment of dispar- 
 agement toward the moderns, that can induce enlightened 
 scholars and men of ability to deny these truths. In the weak 
 and superficial, pedantry and an affectation of scholarship pro- 
 duce the same effect. 
 . Distance, whether in time or place, increases our admiration 
 
10 
 
 of men and things. Familiarity and proximity, on the contra- 
 ry, detract from it. Time has thrown over the ancients a 
 sacred and mystical veil, which, by half concealing them, mag- 
 nifies and elevates them to our mental vision, somewhat on the 
 principle of an "optical illusion!" And our assumed famil- 
 iarity with the moderns, because they are nearer to our own 
 date, cheapens them in our estimation. Americans imagine 
 the distinguished men of Great Britain and France superior to 
 their own countrymen, until they form an intimacy with them; 
 when they become convinced of their mistake. In like man- 
 ner, an intimate acquaintance, could it now be formed, with 
 Zeno and Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, would prove to us 
 their inferiority to many modern philosophers; Nor can any 
 thing but the causes here referred to, so far mislead judges, 
 otherwise competent, as to induce them to pronounce the ora- 
 tions of Demosthenes and Cicero, superior to those of Chatham, 
 Burke, Sheridan, Pitt, Fox, Henry, Ames, Pinckney, Webster, 
 and other modern orators, that might be easily named. In a 
 word; in all mental productions, except architecture and stat- 
 uary, the ancients are far surpassed by the moderns. Nor is 
 it certain that Canova was not equal to Phidias or Lysippus. As 
 far as the ravages of time have left us the means of deciding, the 
 palm must be-'awarded to modern painters; and, in poetry, the 
 ancients have nothing to compare with the miracles of genius 
 transmitted to us by Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. 
 
 Taken in its present condition then, elaborated and matur- 
 ed for centuries, by many of the ablest philologists and schol- 
 ars the world has produced, the English language is, in all 
 respects, as perfect as either of the three, Saxon, Greek, or La- 
 tin, from which it is derived. It is moreover, now, as indepen- 
 dent of them, as they are of each other, or as either of them 
 is of it; because it has assimilated to its own nature, and con- 
 verted into its own being, all it has received from them. Not 
 more completely is the food we derive from the flesh of our 
 domestic animals converted into our own persons; nor are our 
 persons more distinct from the animals we feed on, or more 
 capable of acting and being employed in entire independence 
 
47 
 
 of them. It may therefore be studied as successfully alone, 
 and without reference to them, as they can without regard or 
 reference to it. Having its own structure, its own spirit, and 
 its own peculiar idioms and forms of expression, it is now a 
 self-sustained production, and could exist and be improved, 
 were Greek and Latin annihilated and forgotten. It is matter 
 of amazement, therefore, that able scholars, and enlightened 
 and reflecting men, should still contend for the necessity of a 
 knowledge of these two languages to a full understanding of 
 English. Beyond all question, if an acquaintance with Greek 
 and Latin, which are but mere feeders, be necessary to the 
 formation of an accomplished English scholar, an acquaintance 
 with Saxon, which is the parent stream, is immeasurably more 
 so. Let us be consistent, then; and if our youth must dwell 
 for years on the languages of Greece and Rome, let them not ne- 
 glect entirely that of our bold and enterprising ancestors, which 
 as a language, is more closely allied to our own, as well as far 
 more important to it, than either of the other two. On this 
 point let me not be misunderstood. I -do not contend that the 
 Saxon language is either as perfect, rich, or elegant, as the 
 Greek. I know it is not. But I do contend, that it is more 
 concise, spirited, expressive, and vigorous; and, in its genius 
 and structure, I repeat, much more assimilated to English. It 
 is a rough and hardy product of the north, exhibiting in its 
 frame and character, much of the iron nerve, abrupt manner 
 and irresistible force of those who spoke it. It bears in 
 it nothing that smacks of the feminine softness, or languid re- 
 pose of a southern clime. It sighs not in zephyrs, distils not 
 in "accents bland, and tones mellifluous," and murmurs but 
 sparingly in tenderness and love. If it ministers to music, it 
 is chiefly to that, which inflames the warrior, and invokes him 
 to the use of the spear and the sabre. It is, moreover, as tense 
 and unyielding as the Saxon steel, and as keen and cutting, as the 
 blast from the icy ocean — and capable of being rendered al- 
 most as boisterous. Hence, by far the most pungent, pithy, 
 and expressive phraseology in our language, is that which is 
 composed of Saxon English. So, I say, is the most concise; 
 
48 
 
 because a very large proportion of that form of English con- 
 sists of words of owe and two syllables; while those derived 
 from other sources are much longer. Greek and Roman 
 English is as far beneath it in vigour and intensity, as are the 
 other varieties of man "beneath the Anglo-Saxon race. Our 
 best English writers, therefore, whose works bear without in- 
 jury the trials of lime, and even increase in reputation under 
 them, are those who have drawn most abundantly on our an- 
 cient mother tongue. Of this class, Swift and Addison, Boling- 
 broke and Jeremy Taylor are exemplifications. It is to be 
 lamented, however, that owing to the peculiar and tasteless 
 spirit of the age in which he wrote, the last named author has 
 deformed and injured his admirable Saxon-English style, by 
 squadrons of intrusive Greek and Latin quotations. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten, that, in no other language, 
 which scholarship can adduce, Greek and Latin not excepted, 
 is the sound so perfect an "echo to the sense," as in Sax- 
 on-English, and the source it is derived from. Proof of 
 this we have in the words — bang — clash — slap — slash — 
 crash — dash — lash — thrash — crack — crush—hurl— rush — roar 
 — loud — creak — shriek — screech — scream — -groan- moan-hoarse 
 — jar — thunder — tramp — and in thousands of others, whose 
 sound alone, when pronounced singly, is a comment on 
 their meaning, which can hardly be misunderstood, even by 
 those who are strangers to them. And those phrases and clauses 
 in our literature, whose sounds are most strikingly in keeping 
 with their signification, are composed almost entirely of Saxon- 
 English. Thus, what can be more perfectly significant, than 
 the cant phrases, hurly-burly — hurry-scurry — "Ran hurry- 
 scurry through the room, and pop into the parlour entered" 
 (Gray.) And again — "Sharp misery had icom him to the 
 
 bones" 
 
 * *■ * * * * * 
 
 "And when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 
 
 "The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar." 
 
 "With many a weary step, and many a groan, 
 "Up the bigb hill lie heares a huge round stone. 
 
49 
 
 < 6 The huge round stone, resulting with a bound, 
 "Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground." 
 ****** 
 
 "The curfew toils! the knet of parting day; 
 "The lowing herds wind sIgwIj o'er the lea; 
 "The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
 "And leaves the world to darkness, and to me. n 
 Though these quotations contain several words of Roman- 
 English, yet the terms, which give them nerve and character, 
 are of Saxon origin. 
 
 As another objection to the views I am advocating, we are 
 told that all our best English writers have been versed in Greek 
 and Latin. 
 
 That there is a strong semblance of truth in this, is certain; 
 but that it is strictly and entirely true, may be safely denied. 
 And that writers have excelled in English composition, and in 
 composition .in other modern languages, in proportion to their 
 knowledge of Greek and Latin, is without a shadow of foun- 
 dation in truth* Shakspeare knew neither Greek nor Latin. 
 Yet, as a writer of English he is unrivalled. William Cobbet, 
 whose style, for purity and conciseness, perspicuity and 
 strength, (qualities of the highest order in writing,) is not sur- 
 passed by that of any of his contemporaries, was entirely un- 
 versed in the dead languages. So were Franklin and Wash- 
 ington, w T ho wrote with great and peculiar excellence; and so 
 are many female authors of distinguished merit, whose names 
 are too well known to need a citation. To Washington, in 
 particular, I here refer, not only in a spirit of intense admira- 
 tion; but with a sentiment of the loftiest pride and exultation, 
 as an American. His letters and other productions, as various 
 and interesting, as they are extensive and important, have en- 
 twined around his brow the chaplet of letters, in splendid 
 relief with the laurels of the hero, and the time-worn and ven- 
 erable locks of the sage. They give positive proof, that he 
 wielded his pen, as gracefully and vigorously, and almost as 
 gloriously, as he wielded his sword. His "Writings," whose 
 publication is now in progress, are by far the most distinguish- 
 ed and valuable contribution that. American Literature has 
 7 
 
50 
 
 received during the present century — if not the most valuable 
 it has ever received. To the few names here adduced, might be 
 added hundreds of others, who, unversed in the languages of 
 the Greeks and Romans, have acquired in Great Britain and 
 America, both as writers and speakers, the most enviable stand- 
 ing, and brilliant renown. To this number belong Patrick 
 Henry, John Marshall, and the great surviving Orator of the 
 West. To extend my remarks on this subject; neither Buffon, 
 Moliere, nor Cuvier had the slightest acquaintance with Greek 
 or Latin. Yet do they stand, each in his own sphere, in the 
 foremost class of French writers. And General Foy, the 
 most commanding orator in the Chamber of Deputies, was 
 also a stranger to the dead languages. So, I think, was Mira- 
 beau, the Pericles of his nation. Assuredly he was very lim- 
 ited in his knowledge of Greek and Latin, if not entirely 
 wanting in it. — But why multiply names in proof of my posi- 
 tion? One serves my purpose as well as a thousand. If, with- 
 out a knowledge of the ancient tongues, a single Briton or 
 American has become consummately great, in writing or speak- 
 ing, or both, my end is attained. The fact shows, that such 
 knowledge is not essential to the most powerful, useful, and 
 fascinating command of the English language — and that is all I 
 am endeavouring to prove. A knowledge of Greek and Latin 
 gives a more precise and critical acquaintance with English 
 words, in a philological disquisition, or any other form' of mere 
 verbal inquiry. But, that it gives the slightest aid in the read- 
 iness of command or the tastefulness of selection, the power of 
 combination or the appropriateness of the application of words, 
 in writing or speaking, -may be safely denied. 
 
 I have been told indeed, that, though Franklin, Washing- 
 ton, and others wrote well without a knowledge of Greek or 
 Latin, they would have written much better with it. This is 
 a mere conjecture, employed as a cavil. No one knows 
 how they would have written, as Greek and Latin scholars; 
 because the' experiment was not made. The notion is but one 
 of the hundred expedients, which artful disputants employ, as 
 a substitute for something better, in a cause that cannot be 
 
51 
 
 sustained by facts. It is intended to darken, not to elucidate — 
 to puzzle, not to convince. I dismiss it, therefore, without 
 further notice, as unworthy of a discussion, where facts alone 
 are of any avail. 
 
 As respects my second position, that authors do not excel 
 in English composition, in proportion to their attainments in 
 Greek and Latin, it is already so palpable, that to cite exam- 
 ples in proof of it, would be a waste of time. I have rarely 
 known a thoroughly drilled Helenist or Romanist, who could 
 write or speak English with very high effect. And I have 
 known many such, who spoke it miserably— and w 7 ho never 
 wrote it, but in violation of the rules of composition and gram- 
 mar. Those who idolatrously worship the "golden calf" of 
 Greek and Latin, hold English scholarship beneath their dig- 
 nity, and therefore do not excel in it. -Even Sir Walter Scott, 
 a miracle in English literature, had but a meager acquaintance 
 with the dead languages. Many a school-pedant, unable to 
 pen a correct paragraph in his native tongue, greatly surpassed 
 him in what is called, by way ol pre-eminence, classical learn- 
 ing — but which is far from being justly entitled to the pre-emi- 
 nence conceded to it. The kind of learning, which, in an 
 Englishman or an American, greatly surpasses every other, in 
 high and commendable qualities, is that which best prepares 
 him, to wield the mightiness of his mother tongue, with cor- 
 rectness and utility, splendour and power. And shame to the 
 renegade, who would forego or exchange such learning, for the 
 comparatively petty ability to compose epitaphs and sonnets 
 in the language of Cicero! Yet it is not long since a criticism 
 met my eye, emptying on an author of certain productions of 
 the kind, the most fulsome panegyric. He was proclaimed 
 quite a miracle of scholarship, though, with ail the aid of his 
 Greek and Latin, he was but a smatterer in the literature of 
 his native tongue. Finally; in our own country, the author 
 of the Sketch-Book, pronounced in England the most graceful 
 and polished writer of the day, is but slightly versed in the 
 ancient languages. 
 
 Am I asked, is not a knowledge of Greek and Latin essen- 
 
1 
 
 52 
 
 tial to eminence in the learned Professions? I answer no — 
 certainly not to eminence in Medicine and Law. Th'dUwhen 
 possessed, it may be matter of convenience, as well as in some 
 degree useful in them, is not denied. But its usefulness is 
 overrated. When fairly estimated, taking into the account 
 the only ends to which it is applied, it is doubtful whether it is 
 worth the time and trouble of acquiring it. And that it is not 
 essential, appears from the fact, that some of the most distin- 
 guished members of Medicine and Law, have been destitute • 
 of it. John Hunter stood formerly, and Sir Astley Cooper 
 stands now, at the head of one branch of the medical profes- 
 sion. Yet an acquaintance with the dead languages made no 
 part of their acquirements. And it is well known that the 
 same is true, of some of the most eminent lawyers in the United 
 States. Even Alexander Hamilton, one of the first civilians 
 and lawyers of the age, had such a limited acquaintance with 
 Greek and Latin, (if indeed he had any at all,) that it was nev- 
 er felt by him in his professional operations, or in any other 
 of the exercises of his mind. He was far above all such puny 
 assistants — or rather above a reliance on such trivial things^ 
 which could not assist him. Had Greek and Latin been blot- 
 ted from existence before his birth, the event w 7 ould have had 
 no effect on his greatness. He would have been Hamilton 
 without them. The knowledge of Greek was no more neces- 
 sary to his greatness, than was a knowledge of English to the 
 greatness of Demosthenes. A notion the reverse of this, would 
 be equally the reverse of common sense. Such men have the 
 elements of greatness implanted by their Creator in the con- 
 stitution of their minds; and those elements may be as certainly 
 developed, and brought to maturity, under the influence of one 
 cultivated language, whether ancient or modern, as under that 
 of another. The mental powers are much less under the sway 
 of language, than is generally imagined. The celebrated Wil- 
 liam Lewis of Philadelphia, who stood long at the head of the 
 American Bar, could not translate correctly a sentence of 
 and Latin, was a stranger even to the Greek alphabet. Yet, 
 as an advocate, he was illustrious, and as a counsellor profound. 
 
53 
 
 And the late Dr. Rush, though his Inaugural Dissertation was 
 in Latin j and though, as an elegant writer of English, and an 
 able and successful practitioner and teacher of medicine he 
 was one of the most distinguished physicians of the age, knew 
 but little of the Roman language, and much less of the Greek. 
 On this point I speak confidently; because I speak from'per- 
 sonai knowledge. 
 
 True; most of the technical terms in Law and Medicine are 
 derived from Greek and Latin; especially from the former. 
 Those who have a knowledge of that language, therefore, ex- 
 perience, from it, in the commencement of their professional 
 studies, some facility in the understanding of those terms. 
 But this advantage over pupils, w 7 ho are ignorant of Greek and 
 Latin, is of short duration. It was gained by the long and 
 laborious process of consulting and conning Greek and Latin 
 books. It was therefore the reward of much time consumed, 
 and much toil endured. But the meaning of those terms can 
 be learnt by others, in a tenth part of the time, and with a 
 like disproportion of labour, by consulting professional diction- 
 aries or glossaries alone. I know this to be true: because I 
 have seen it verified in hundreds of instances. As respects 
 medicine in particular, whose technical nomenclature is most 
 voluminous, I am far from having found Greek and Latin 
 scholars to be always the most successful students in it. In 
 that respect, I know from observation, that their acquaintance 
 with the dead languages does not uniformly or highly avail 
 them. 
 
 Respecting other branches of science, the same is true. 
 Their nomenclatures can be learnt, and pre-eminence attained 
 in them, without a knowledge of Greek and Latin. Sir Hum- 
 phrey Davy, by far the most illustrious chemist of his time, 
 was a stranger to those languages. And some of the ablest 
 botanists, mineralogists, and general naturalists in the United 
 States have been in the same condition. 
 
 Mere nomenclature excepted, there is no more essential 
 connexion between Greek or Latin, and any branch of science 
 that forms an element of a Liberal Education, than between 
 
51 
 
 Sancrit, or Gaelic, and that branch. And, as already stated, 
 the nomenclature can be learnt, without the formal study of 
 those languages. To contend then, that a knowledge of Greek 
 and Latin is indispensable to a Liberal Education, of the high- 
 est order as respects science and the command of English, is 
 to reject the fruits of observation and experience, to cling to 
 prejudice and be deaf to reason, to follow custom and fashion 
 to the abandonment of common sense, and to advocate an 
 error as gross as can be imagined. 
 
 Still am I told, however, that by far the greater number of 
 able and distinguished modern authors have been Greek and 
 Roman scholars. Granted; and the reason is plain. An over- 
 whelming majority of writers (in the proportion of one hun- 
 dred to one, and perhaps higher) have been thus educated. 
 Had they foiled therefore to produce either a greater amount 
 of fruit, or fruit of higher qualities, the failure would have been 
 astonishing. The Greek and Latin scholars, who have become 
 authors, have been also in other respects educated men — fam- 
 iliar, I mean, with science, as well as with language; while 
 those who have achieved authorship, without the dead lan- 
 guages, have been, for the. most part, equally strangers to sci- 
 ence — except what they have acquired by their own unassist- 
 ed labours. Contending then on terms so fearfully at odds, it 
 might be pronounced impossible for the latter class of writers 
 to equal the former. Cultivated fruit is always the most valu- 
 ble; and of a hundred fields thoroughly tilled, the product 
 must be, of necessity, both better and more abundant, than that 
 of a single field, or even of several fields, scarcely tilled at all. 
 Be it distinctly understood, however, that while I acknow- 
 ledge the superiority of the works of authors educated in the 
 dead languages, my allusion is to their literary superiority, not 
 their scientific. Had I leisure for the investigation, it might 
 be easily shown, that, astronomy alone excepted, the most 
 useful and splendid discoveries in science have been made by 
 men""not thus educated. Assuredly by far the most numerous 
 and important discoveries have been made by them, in propor- 
 tion to their number. And had they disciplined themselves in 
 
 ¥ 
 
55 
 
 English, to the extent they might have done, even the literary 
 qualities of their writings might have equalled those of the 
 productions of their more learned rivals. As far as I am in- 
 formed, no polyglot scholar has ever been the author of a single 
 discovery, except one touching the genealogy, inflection, or 
 newfangled signification of a verb, noun, or pronoun, or some- 
 thing else respecting parts of speech! True, some of these 
 literati have attempted to trace through language the origin of 
 nations — to show, for example, that the aborigines of America 
 are the descendants of Tartars, Malays, Egyptians, or Chinese. 
 And on each of these points, their labours have been alike suc- 
 cessful. In plain terms, they have failed in them all. After their 
 multiplied toils through the tangled wilderness of lingual identi- 
 ties and differences, analogies and synonymes, the subject re- 
 poses under the same gloom now, that enveloped it on the eve 
 of the Revival of Letters. The most singular result of these 
 wordy researches is, that they have rendered it doubtful, in 
 the minds of several inquirers, whether America was not in- 
 habited at an earlier period than Asia or Europe. The truth 
 is, that the researches are founded on an insufficient basis. A 
 similarity in their languages may show that nations have held 
 intercourse with each other; but not that they sprang from the 
 same root. There are many words common to the languages 
 of Greece and Rome. That however does not prove the com- 
 mon origin of the Greeks and Latins. The same is true of the 
 Spaniards. Their language resembles not a little the language 
 of the ancient Romans. The two people however are not 
 descendants of a common stock. The craziest hypothesis I 
 have known, on this subject, is that of a writer of some note, 
 who has attempted to trace all known languages, and to suppose 
 the same of all unknown ones, up to the Hebrew root, which 
 he asserts to have been the language of Adam in Paradise! 
 On what grounds this assertion is made, I leave to our Parrs 
 and Busbies to decide! 1 shall only add, that, in giving names 
 to common and striking objects, such as the sun, moon, stars, 
 fire, light, darkness, father, mother, and others of a like char- 
 acter, where an effort is usually made to render sound sig- 
 
56 
 
 nificant of sense, nations and tribes neither descended 
 from the same stock, nor having had the least intercourse with 
 each other, may readily invent analogous terms. It would be 
 matter of surprise if they did not. 
 
 One of the most pernicious errors prevailing on this subject, 
 is the belief, that a familiarity with the structure and genius of 
 the Greek and Latin languages, but more especially with the 
 Uxjle and manner of Greek and Latin composition, is highly 
 useful, as a model for imitation, to an English writer. To such 
 an extent do some scholars carry this notion, as to assert, that 
 the ancient classics are the only source of taste in composition; 
 and that none therefore but classical scholars can write with 
 taste. Were it an object to analyze this extraordinary fancy 
 it would be easy to show, that it arises from a want of know- 
 ledge, in those who entertain it, of the true import of the term 
 taste, the objects it acts on, and the ends it subserves. But 
 such analysis is unnecessary, and would attach to the error 
 more consequence than it deserves. The position is in contra- 
 diction of all experience of the past, and all observation of the 
 present. The Jewish writers never drank at the Hippocrene of 
 Greek or Roman literature; nor did they repair for inspiration to 
 Helicon or Parnassus; yet some of them, especially their poets, 
 have manifested, in their compositions, a taste as exquisite, as 
 that which marks the most finished productions of Athens or 
 Rome. So have a number of Persian writers. Many English and 
 American authors, moreover, entire strangers to the dead lan- 
 guages, have written with excellent taste — far surpassing the 
 taste in composition of a large portion of classical scholars. Nor 
 is this all. A farther refutation of the error is found in the fact, 
 that the style of no English author, who has patterned after the 
 writers of Greece or Rome, has continued long to be approved 
 and admired. In proof of this, Milton and Young, Gibbons and 
 Johnson, may be cited in contrast with Addison, Swift, Boling- 
 broke, and Scott. The four latter authors have written in the 
 straight forward and unaffected simplicity and ease of Saxon- 
 English, and will be admired while English literature shall 
 last. The four former, on the contrary, have imitated the 
 
57 
 
 stiffness, pomp, and transposition of Greek and Roman writers, 
 to say nothing of their hackneyed mythological allusions, — 
 and their styles have grown obsolete. And such will be the 
 inevitable fate of every effort, whether in literature or art, that 
 violates the truth and simplicity of nature. For nature, and 
 not Greek and Latin, is the object which true taste will always 
 admire, and the exemplar it will always faithfully imitate. 
 Nor will it condescend to imitate any thing else. Nature 
 gives \he principles of taste, and art teaches nnd produces confor- 
 mity to them. To pronounce Greek and Latin the only fountain 
 of taste and refinement in English composition, is indicative of 
 ignorance and a want of taste in those who do so. 
 
 The sentiments avowed on this occasion I have loner enter- 
 tained, and, in consequence of them, have been charged with 
 a wish, to have the study of the dead languages excluded from 
 our colleges; and the course of education in them correspond- 
 ingly abridged. To the former charge I have replied already 
 in the negative; and I now pronounce the latter equally un- 
 founded. Instead of abridging, I would greatly amplify the 
 course of instruction, in our colleges and universities; but I 
 would make it all available for usefulness, or elegance, or both* 
 It should be an education of substance more than of sound 
 • — of science rather than words. The languages taught to 
 American scholars, in addition to their own, should be chiefly 
 living languages — those of nations with which we hold inter- 
 course and transact business; and which may be repositories of 
 knowledge, not to be found in our own literature. Of this class 
 are French, Spanish, German, and Italian. Under two of 
 these tongues in particular, (French and German) is concealed 
 much matter of great importance, not yet transferred to En- 
 glish books. Of Italian, to a certain extent, the same is true. 
 But is it equally true of Greek and Latin? Certainly not. Th<se 
 languages are no repositories of science, and contain nothing 
 thatisnew to us. All that is valuable or even interesting in 
 them has been long since introduced into our own literature. 
 They are now studied therefore as languages, and nothing else. 
 They communicate to the students of them not a thought, that 
 8 
 
58 
 
 may not be had through another channel. All they contain 
 of ancient customs, manners, arts, and sciences, is before the 
 world in an English dress. Nor should it be forgotten, that 
 to the minds of scholars, who have not a peculiar turn and ca- 
 pacity for them, a' crowd of languages becomes lumber, and 
 excludes from them more interesting and useful matter. 
 
 Shall I be told again, as I often have been, that there are 
 beauties in ancient literature, which cannot be introduced into 
 our own? I do not receive the assertion as fact. There is 
 more of pretence and affectation than of reality in it. It is the 
 product of learned vanity, egotism, and pedantry combined. 
 Those who pretend to have made the discovery, pay, in the 
 annunciation of it, much more homage to their own assumed 
 sagacity and taste, than to truth. At any rate, if such beaut- 
 ies really exist — beauties I mean which cannot be introduced 
 into English, and thus made available to taste, fancy, or feeling, 
 in conversation, writing, or public speaking, they are useless, 
 — and might as well not exist. If the Kelenist and Romanist 
 feels them himself, but can communicate nothing of his feeling 
 to any body else, they are at best a fruitless possession, unso- 
 cial, unprofitable, undesirable and unblest. For who, endowed 
 with benevolence, or human sympathy, would wish to brood, in 
 solitude, over incommunicable pleasures. The miser and the 
 misanthrope are alone capable of such repulsive selfishness. 
 But the allegation is groundless. No such mystical beauties 
 exist in Greek and Latin. Such are the power and copious- 
 ness, the delicacy, flexibility and accuracy of expression of the 
 English tongue, that it can set forth intelligibly every feeling, 
 thought, and conception of the mind, whether original or de- 
 rivative. For an American scholar, therefore, to contend that 
 he perceives in Homer or Pindar, Euripides, Horace, or Vir- 
 gil, literary beauties which he cannot express, is a confession 
 (which should mortify him,) that he is deficient in the know- 
 edge and command of his mother tongue. For that tongue, 
 I repeat, is richer and fuller, more fruitful and varied in its 
 resources of expression, than the tongues of Greece and Rome 
 united. Assuredly there are turns of expression in English, 
 
59 
 
 much more felicitous and beautiful, than any /have ever been 
 able to detect in the dead languages. And by what occult 
 power other persons, of but moderate penetration, and no 
 . better versed in those languages than myself, have succeeded 
 in making such detections, is left to those skilled in casuistry 
 to decide. 
 
 I repeat, that my earnest desire is, to sec- the compass of ed- 
 ucation expanded and its period lengthens; 1 . '-; not that it should 
 be narrowed in the former respect, or shortened in the latter. 
 This truth is sufficiently evinced by my brief exposition of a 
 Liberal Education heretofore given, The branches of know- 
 ledge there enumerated, as necessary elements of such an ed- 
 ucation, are amply sufficient, if thoroughly studied,, to employ 
 the whole time of a youth of the best talents, from the age of 
 twelve or fourteen, to that, of eighteen or twenty, the proper 
 time for the commencement of professional studies. Of that 
 period, a much larger portion should be devoted to the thorough 
 cultivation of English literature, than is now done, in any seat 
 of learning, with which I am acquainted. I mean its cultiva- 
 tion more especially in the form of studied composition, and 
 extemporary speech. The latter mode of exercise, which, 
 under a government like ours, forms so much of the business of 
 public and professional life, is too much neglected in our colle- 
 ges and universities, Were it there practised and improved 
 to the proper extent, under the supervision of teachers posses- 
 sing a sound and critical judgment, and a cultivated and w r ell 
 matured taste, we should have our pulpits, courts of justice, 
 deliberative assemblies, and other places of public and popular 
 address, purged in time of much of that turbulent and bottom- 
 less flood of rant and declamation, which too often disgraces 
 them. American eloquence in genera], like that of the fourth of 
 July breaking from the lips oi undisciplined striplings, is too 
 rank and gorgeous in leaves and flowers, to be abundant in 
 fruit. It has in it much more of fume and fire, trope and fig- 
 ure, than of substantial matter, or of judgment and taste. 
 Words substantive are too gaudily ornamented by the pomp 
 of adjectives; there is too much of mouthing; with long and 
 
€0 
 
 sonorous terms, often of recent and spurious coinage; and its 
 display is beyond its solidity and strength. I should indeed 
 lament to see it stript of all its bright imagery and flowery 
 garniture, and reduced to entire nudity and barrenness. Nor 
 do I deem it desirable that iciness should succeed to its tropical 
 heat. Jt would rejoice me, however, to witness its ebullition 
 quieted, its storminess calmed, itsgaudiness chastened, and its 
 superabundance retrenched, without any diminution of its 
 man'iness or vigour. And this may be easily dpne. Were 
 youth strictly taught the mode in which men should speak, and 
 practised in it themselves, they would not afterwards forget 
 the lesson. And much of this improvement may be effected 
 by judicious training in our seats of learning. Let the work of 
 reform begin lliere, and it will be carried out in the pulpits, courts,* 
 and deliberative institutions of our country, which are so many 
 practical schools of oratory. Nor are they schools of com- 
 mon rank, or ordinary promise. Far otherwise. If conducted 
 under the influence of well-directed ambition and enlightened 
 taste, they will become the most illustrious the world has pro- 
 duced, and cannot fail to confer, in time, on American elo- 
 quence, a splendour and perfection, that have never marked 
 the eloquence of any other people. This is not to be regard- 
 ed as the mere outpouring of buoyant hope, or as an indulgence 
 in wanton and thoughtless prediction. It is offered as matter of 
 a higher caste. It is a deliberate announcement, by fair infe- 
 rence, of what causes now in operation may be made to pro- 
 duce. No people have a happier turn for eloquence, than 
 those of the United States. Nor, from the number and char- 
 acter of our deliberative and other oratorical institutions, and 
 our modes of administering them, does any other nation now 
 possess, nor has any one ever heretofore possessed, a tithe of 
 the advantages that we do, for improvement in eloquence. 
 The means are in our power; and we are not only privileged 
 to employ them — we are invoked to that effect, by incentives 
 that should be irresistible — our pride and ambition as individ- 
 uals and as a people, our love of self, and our love of country 
 — to say nothing of our abstract duty to our race. If we do 
 
61 
 
 not then surpass, in this glorious accomplishment, the people 
 of all other nations and times, the fault will be our own, and 
 our own the disgrace. 
 
 But through what language muat American genius shine in 
 oratory, charm in poetry, and instruct in history, philosophy, 
 and other forms of literary composition? Through Greek and 
 Latin? No certainly; but through our mother tongue, forget- 
 ful of its descent from any other language. For the time is 
 certainly coming, when that descent will be forgotten — or dis- 
 regarded. The remembrance will not hang, a perpetual incu- 
 bus on our speech, detracting from its independence, and pre- 
 venting its maturity. For the English tongue never will nor 
 can be completely mature, until rendered so by independent 
 cultivation. This is as true, as that we should never have 
 emerged from immaturity, as a nation, had we continued in 
 our colonial dependence on Great Britain. An independent 
 condition is essential to the perfection of all that is human. To 
 suppose that the English language, which, in less than a centu- 
 ry, will be spoken by three hundred millions of souls, — first in 
 standing among the races of men — to suppose that it will still 
 be considered the nursling of the languages of those specks of 
 earth, called Italy and Greece, whose pride, pomp, and power 
 have long since passed away, is the consummation of romance 
 — not to pronounce it the height of absurdity! Ages on ages 
 after those languages shall have become — as become they must 
 — the Sanscrit of letters, will the English tongue continue to 
 improve in all the higher qualities of speech — and it will improve 
 I say the more rapidly, from being cultivated alone, without any 
 reference to the source from which it sprang. 
 
 By being treated in its relations to other languages, English 
 sustains a two-fold injury. It is adulterated by foreignisms; 
 and the estimation it is held in is below what it deserves. 
 Some of our puny and conceited book-makers, who have pass- 
 ed a few months in France and Italy, make a perfect jargon of 
 their style of writing, by an affected and tasteless admixture of 
 foreign phrases. Nor is this all. We attach lingual honours 
 to Greek and Latin, and hold in comparative degradation our 
 
62 
 
 mother tongue. Hence, on him alone, who is versed in the 
 former, do we bestow the epithet learned; while he, whose 
 knowledge of speech is confined to the latter, (no matter how 
 ripe and ample may be his knowledge of other things,) is hu- 
 miliatingly pronounced by us, a mere "English Scholar!" — 
 with a view to the depreciation of his literary standing. I 
 have heard that phrase repeatedly affixed to the venerable 
 names of Franklin and Washington! And I have heard the 
 term Scholar coupled with the names of dabblers, because they 
 had looked into Sallust and Xenophon; who, notwithstanding,, 
 misspelt even monosyllables in their mother tongue, and violated 
 its grammar, in almost every sentence they spoke, and every 
 clause they penned! To say nothing of their judgment, sense 
 of justice, and veneration of the names of the good and the great, 
 how can the pride of Englishmen and Americans tolerate this I 
 "English ^Scholar- employed, at this period, as a phrase beto- 
 kening illiteracy, and disrepute! while the time is approaching, 
 when it will be one of the brightest spots on the escutcheon of 
 letters! 
 
 I have appealed to the "pride''' of Englishmen and Ameri- 
 cans, on this subject; and I address myself to it again, in the 
 hope that I shall be heard. And I assert with confidence, that 
 there is nothing in their histoiy more worthy of their pride, than 
 their matchless language — for it is matchless, — assuredly un- 
 matclied in many of the choicest qualities of speech — in its co- 
 piousness and flexibility, variety, accuracy, and power of ex- 
 pression. It is unequalled moreover, as already mentioned, in 
 the richness and profundity of its literature, and not surpassed 
 in its sublimity and splendour. It is the language/ in which 
 the history of Great Britain and America has been hitherto 
 written, and will be written hereafter, through the lapse of 
 ages, recording the extent and glory of their achievments, in 
 peace and in war; and it is that, in which, amidst the tempest 
 of arms, their warriors have cheered, and been cheered to the 
 combat; and in which their triumphs have been proclaimed, in 
 the shouts of victory, on the quarter-deck and in the battle- 
 field! 
 
R3 
 
 It is worthy, then, I say, to be an object of the highest pride 
 and exultation, as well as of veneration and love, to every 
 loyal and high-minded Briton and American. And until it 
 shall be thus regarded and gloried in by them, it will never 
 be cultivated with the earnestness it deserves; nor be brought 
 to the perfection, of which it is susceptible. For that perfec- 
 fection it has not yet attained. Wherefore was Greek render- 
 ed the most beautiful and perfect of the languages of antiquity? 
 Because those Who spoke it took pride in it, loved it, venerated 
 it, and cultivated it in itself, in perfect independence of all other 
 tongues. They resolved to make it the most perfect and pow- 
 erful of then existing languages; and they succeeded, because 
 they laboured unremittingly, in conformity to their resolution. 
 And it has proved in consequence the instrument at once of 
 their renown and salvation. But for her much admired lan- 
 guage, where would be the celebrity of ancient Greece — or 
 even the knowledge of her existence? Take away her lan- 
 guage, and, in despite of the splendour in intellect and arms, 
 which once distinguished her, and her still subsisting architec- 
 tural wonders, she would be entombed in the darkness, which 
 broods in the catacombs and pyramids of Egypt. 
 
 And what Greek has been to Greece, is English to America. 
 It is one of her choicest possessions now; for ages to come it 
 will be the record and instrument of her power and grandeur; 
 and, at a period still more remote, it may be her only conser- 
 vator from the shoreless and bottomless sea of oblivion. Paint- 
 ings, as memorials ol greatness, have their end; bronze disap- 
 pears under the corrosions of time; granite and marble dilapi- 
 date and crumble; but language may be rendered as lasting as 
 our race. 
 
 Be it the pride and ambition of American Scholars, then, 
 not only to cultivate their native tongue, but to render it per- 
 fect- For that purpose, without discouraging the study of 
 Greek and Latin in other institutions, let colleges be establish- 
 ed, in which modern languages alone will be taught, English 
 being the chief of them, united to a full course of modern 
 science. Let the trial be fairly made, under competent provis- 
 
64 
 
 ions, and persevered in or abandoned, according to the issue. 
 But its abandonment is not to be apprehended. Let the teach- 
 ers and the taught, in aid of suitable abilities and means, be faith- 
 ful and strenuous, industrious and persevering — true to their du- 
 ty, themselves, and their country — and I peril my reputation 
 that the experiment will be triumphant. Within the influence of 
 these schools, whose motto might be "ancient prejudices super- 
 seded by modern improvements," the phrase "English Scholar" 
 will be no longer uttered in token of literary contempt or dises- 
 teem. On the contrary, it will be hailed as an earnest of tho- 
 rough, and useful, and elegant scholarship, And, under the ar- 
 rangement, to which it shall owe its honours, I fearlessly re- 
 peat, that the English tongue will reach, in America, an eleva- 
 tion and perfection, to which it has never attained in its native 
 land. But its cultivation, I say, must be in all respects faith- 
 ful and thorovgh; the want of which is a leading cause of fail- 
 ure in all things. The faithlessness of teachers and pupils is 
 infinitely more injurious to letters, than their inability. 
 
 That an experiment of this description will be made, I cannot 
 doubt; because I consider it the suggestion of reason; and it 
 accords, as I persuade myself, with the spirit of improvement 
 abroad in our land. And I should rejoice at its being made in 
 the Mississippi Valley, where it will have fewer prejudices to 
 encounter, than in the States of the Atlantic. Nor is any 
 place better suited to it, than the State of Indiana, which, unit- 
 ed to an enterprizing and liberal spirit, is already displaying 
 the courage and strength of an infant Hercules, sustained by 
 the firmness of manhood, and tempered and directed by the 
 wisdom of age. 
 
 I speak not in flattery, but sincerity, when I say, that India- 
 na is destined by nature to be great — great in herself, the pro- 
 jector of great and useful enterprises; and the producer of 
 great an<! important effects; and that marks of that destiny are 
 stampt on her features. Extensive in her territorial dimen- 
 sions, and compact in her form; favoured with a temperate and 
 genial climate, and a soil unsurpassed in its fitness for agricul- 
 ture; washed on her borders for several hundred miles, by two 
 
65 
 
 of the noblest rivers in the Union, giving her in one direction 
 a passage to the ocean, and intersected by several other navi- 
 gable streams; rich in valuable mineral productions, and pecu- 
 liarly adapted to the excavation of canals and the construc- 
 tion of rail roads; abounding in excellent water powers for 
 the working of machinery; in contact with the waters of an 
 inland sea, uniting her to the Atlantic in another direction; 
 and rapidly filling up by a population hardy and enterprising, 
 industrious and intelligent — thus circumstanced and provided 
 for, how, I say, is it possible for the State of Indiana, not to 
 become great? To hold the question doubtful, would evidence 
 want of reflection and foresight — not to employ harsher terms, 
 and call it weakness and fo'ly. As well might it be doubted 
 whether the sun that shines, and the dews that descend on her, 
 will continue to cover her plains and prairies with an abundant 
 vegetation. The laws of nature in her favour are as positive 
 in the one case, as they are in the other. 
 
 Already moreover has she given substantial evidence, that 
 she understands her resources, and is resolved to employ them 
 in furtherance of her greatness, by the magnificent scheme of 
 Internal Improvement, which she has recently projected. Let 
 rne here, however, respectfully suggest to the directors of her 
 destiny, that that scheme does not embrace what should be the 
 first, because it is the most important, of all Internal Improve- 
 ments—the Improvement of the public mind. This, I say, is 
 the "most important" and ought to be the "first;" because it 
 is the source of all other improvements; enlightened mind be- 
 ing the projector and promoter of every thing in science and 
 art that is useful to man. Let it be executed on a suitable 
 scale, and in a skilful manner, and other improvements will 
 flow from it, as certainly and naturally, as the stream descends 
 from the fountain, or the rain drops from the cloud. 
 
 In simpler terms; the first duty of a free and enlightened 
 
 government, and the soundest act of wisdom it can perform, 
 
 13 to educate and improve, intellectually and morally, in the 
 
 highest practicable degree, the mind of the community. The 
 
 9 
 
66 
 
 way to do this has bef-n specified already. It is to give to the 
 many a common education of an appropriate character, and a 
 Liberal one to the /ho. And let it be ever borne in mind, that 
 the former grade of education depends essentially on the pro- 
 motion of the latter. If there be not high schools to prepare 
 suitable teachers, common schools will continue to be a dis- 
 grace and a nuisance. To commence the system by an at- 
 tempt to establish primary schools^rs/, is to begin it, I repeat, 
 at the wrong end — a mistake which must inevitably eventuate 
 in failure. Multiply colleges and other forms of high schools 
 to the requisite extent, and valuable common schools may be 
 made to grow out of them, as naturally and certainly, as day 
 succeeds to the rising of the sun. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Philomathean Society: Our acquaintance 
 has been brief, and our intercourse limited. We met first in 
 Society this morning, and shall part in a few minutes, never, 
 it is probable, to meet in it again. Trusting however that we 
 cherish toward each other that kind and confiding spirit of fra- 
 ternity, with which institutions formed for the .promotion of 
 science and letters, and the cultivation of the social and civic 
 virtues, should ever be instinct. I shall presume on the privi- 
 lege of an elder brother, to offer to you, in the shape of parting 
 advice, a few of the suggestions of experience and years. 
 
 Some of you will shortly bid adieu to this calm and peaceful 
 academic retreat, where, for years, you have held converse 
 with Egeria, and dallied with the Muses, to mingle in the Co- 
 mitia, or the Forum, or both, and take part in the busy and 
 exciting scenes, that aw r ait you in life. 
 
 From the very commencement of this active, and, it may 
 be, perturbing and tempestuous career, three glittering points 
 will be likely to attract your notice, and become perhaps, one 
 or all of them, objects of your ambition — wealth, place, and 
 fame. I mean real and lasting fame, the reward of a life time 
 of uninterrupted toil, and high, honorable, and useful achieve- 
 ment; not the "bubble reputation'' — that empty product of pop- 
 ular breath, destitute alike of substance and merit, which, like 
 
67 
 
 the plant of the prophet, may rise in a night, and perish in a 
 night. Nor is it possible for that fame, to which I allude, and 
 which is alone worth labouring for or possessing, to be attained 
 in any other way than that just indicated. 
 
 As correctly represented by the poet, whose very fictions 
 wear the stamp of philosophy and truth, especially in his des- 
 cants on human nature, true fame is perched on a pinnacle as 
 lofty as it is brilliant; the path to it is steep, and rugged, and 
 arduous, and can be ascended only by those who are strong 
 and resolute, ambitious and deserving — who, w T ith the young 
 Raleigh, "will never think of dull earth, while there is a heaven 
 to soar in, or a sun to gaze at;" but are prepared to attempt 
 the precipice, with fearless spirits; and, at every hazard, con- 
 tend for a dwelling, amidst the storminess of upper air. 
 
 In this country, and in these times, I lament to say, that that 
 pinnacle and its glorious prize are too seldom made the aim of 
 youthful ambition. Ends of an humbler order, and of easier 
 attainment receive a preference. Still, permit me most ear- 
 nestly to commend it to you all, as the meed most worthy to 
 be aspired to, and contended for; and to express my hope that 
 some of you will attempt and fortunately reach it. Though, 
 while in pursuit of it, you must exercise untiring patience, prac- 
 tise deep and sometimes painful self-denial, and sustain years 
 of intense and exhausting labour; and though you must do this, 
 in the midst of those, who are enjoying what the world calls 
 pleasure and amusement— notwithstanding these and other 
 trials and privations, to which you will be subjected; still, duty 
 to your professions, your country, and your race, united to an 
 enlightened and high-minded self-esteem, invoke you to the en- 
 terprise. And success in it will abundantly remunerate you for 
 allyou may do and endure in the effort. It will inscribe your 
 names on the roll of renown, with those of the luminaries and 
 benefactors of the world. But your highest and surest reward — 
 that which man can neither give nor take away; but which will 
 cling to you in all vicissitudes of fortune, as an attribute of your 
 nature; your joy in prosperity, and in adversity your consola- 
 tion — that choicest and most unfading reward, will be the 
 
68 
 
 whispered "well done" of an approving conscience — a sustain- 
 ing and gladdening remembrance, that you have devoted the 
 noblest faculties, which the Creator- has bestowed on you, to 
 the high and beneficent purposes, for which he designed them. 
 But what shall 1 say to you of "wealth" and "place" — those 
 objects of idolatry in the eyes of "the million?" I may not 
 pronounce them positive evils; because the charge would be 
 unsustainable. Neither however are they positive goods. They 
 put on the one character or the other, according to the man- 
 ner in which they are obtained, the purposes they are held 
 for, and the ends and uses to which they are applied. 
 
 When wealth is acquired by upright and honorable means, 
 and employed for useful and praiseworthy purposes, it is a 
 boon of great value, because it may be made an instrument of 
 benefits and blessings. And the same is true of political pow- 
 er, the product of place. But when, under a profligate disre- 
 gard of every right and interest, save those connected with 
 self and party, the former is compassed through the fraudulen- 
 cy of speculator?, and the latter by the artifices and machina- 
 tions of demagogues — under these circumstances they change 
 to evils of fearful magnitude, and cannot fail to prove a source 
 of disaster. In a special manner, when cupidity of gain, and 
 the love of place become the ruling passions of a people, that 
 people is rushing blindfold into some catastrophe big with ca- 
 lamity, and will inevitably meet it, unless it be staid in its 
 career by wiser counsels and worthier motives. 
 
 In such a community, stranger as it is to true refinement, 
 and elevated pursuits, literature and science have no foothold, 
 and can never flourish. The desire of the people is to have 
 just as much knowledge, as may enable them to gratify their 
 predominant passions; and that being attained, however small 
 its amount, they wish for nothing more. They covet no ele- 
 gance or accomplishment of mind, for its own sake, for the dig- 
 nity it confers, or for the abundant sources of rational and re- 
 fined enjoyment, which always accompany it. Hence the low 
 and humiliating condition of their mental cultivation. Nor 
 does it comport with the governing principles of human nature, 
 
69 
 
 that the case should be otherwise. In a state of society so tin- 
 genial and withering to them, no more can the higher orders of 
 science and letters take root and flourish, than the palm-tree 
 can spring from the waterless desert. -The reason is plain. 
 Scientific and literary character? are usually poor. They can 
 give neither routs nor racket-parties, can keep no gaudy equi- 
 pages, nor join in the costly dissipations of the day. Nor will 
 a spirit of independence permit them to accept invitations to en- 
 tertainments, should they even receive them — which is seldom 
 the case. Under these circumstances they and their families 
 are excluded from society, and treated with neglect — perhaps 
 with an air of vulgar haughtiness, and assumed superiority. 
 As respects himself, a man conscious -of high talents and exten- 
 sive attainments, personal rectitude and moral worth, might 
 regard with indifference or even disdain, such unbecoming con- 
 duct in his purse-proud neighbours — but not as respects his fam- 
 ily. He cannot bear to see them in what the world considers 
 a degraded condition. He therefore either abandons the socie- 
 ty, which is incapable of appreciating the riches of the mind; 
 or he surrenders his studies, and mingles with the busy, huck- 
 stering herd, in the accumulation of wealth. Thus does Mam- 
 mon triumph over Apollo and his train! 
 
 How does this picture, unsightly as it is, accord with the state 
 of society in America,especially in the great valley of the West? 
 Would to Heaven! I could reply, that it bears no resemblance 
 to it! But such a reply would be unfounded. As a people, 
 we are already proverbially mercenary and avaricious, and 
 covetous of political preferment and place, and are daily be- 
 coming more so. To acquire wealth and climb into power are 
 our master passions. To these all other ends are held subor- 
 dinate, and, as far as possible, all our actions are rendered sub- 
 servient. This assertion is fully sustained by every fact that 
 bears on the subject. The Valley is overrun by land-jobbers, 
 speculators, office-hunters, and their concomitants, as was the 
 valley of the Nile, by the frog and the locust. Nor shall I 
 attempt, at present, the solution of the problem, which evil is 
 
70 
 
 greatest, the physical or the moral? — the loathsome reptile and 
 the devouring insect, or the practised over-reacher in trade, and 
 the habitual perpetrator of dishonesty in politics? — Go where 
 you will — mingle in what society you may, throughout the en- 
 tire region of the West, what are the topics of conversa- 
 tion around you? The reply is as easy, as its substance is de- 
 grading. The price of public lands and the modes of securing 
 them — the value of negroes and cotton-plantations — the con* 
 struction and advantages of rail-roads and canals — the short- 
 est route to political preferment — the comparative profits of 
 grazing- farms, the productiveness of the soil of Texas, and 
 suchlike subjects, constitute the only themes of discussion. 
 All that relates not to filling the purse, or conferring some form 
 of rank in the Government, is forgotten or neglected — perhaps 
 despised. Neither literature nor science, patriotism nor 
 philanthrophy, nor improvement in the intellect and morals of 
 the country, is ever introduced as a topic of conversation. Or, 
 if aught be said of education and improvement, it is of the 
 mode of improving and training domestic animals — especially 
 the breed of running horses, which constitute one of the por- 
 tentous evils of the day. The improvement of the human 
 mind, in its higher faculties, seems a forbidden subject. If 
 to this occasional exceptions offer themselves, they are but oc- 
 casional — like angels' visits, "few and far between" — or, to 
 indulge in a Latin quotation, the more conclusively to show 
 that I am not a foe to that language — they are, like the scat- 
 tered fragments of the classical shipwreck, rare nantes in 
 gurgite vasto. 
 
 The lamentable consequence of this state of things is, that 
 rank and influence in society depend not on strength of mind, 
 extent of knowledge, and maturity of wisdom; nor yet on 
 high breeding, refinement, purity, and elevation of sentiment, 
 or moral rectitude and personal worth— they depend on nothing 
 that talents of the most distinguished order,united to the noblest 
 and best dispositions, and the highest style of education can give. 
 No; their only basis, in the estimation of the "million," whose 
 numbers enable them to dictate opinion, and give the rule of 
 
71 
 
 action, is the size and fulness of the purse — the quantity of 
 lands, and the number of negroes, horses, mules, and horned 
 cattle possessed — and the amount of the annual product of 
 hemp and cotton crops. In fine; ii is not I say intellectual 
 wealth and moral excellence, but pecuniary wealth and politi- 
 cal place and power, that give standing and influence in the 
 Mississippi Valley. Nor can a condition of things more humili- 
 ating in itself, or more inauspicious to the continued soundness 
 and maintenance of our free institutions be represented or im- 
 agined. We are apprized in history, . that a state of society 
 very strikingly similar preceded the downfall of the Roman 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 Does any one question the. correctness of this statement? He 
 is referred for proof of it to the mental condition of those who 
 rule the fashion, to which we all conform, enact the laws 
 we are bound to obey, and fill a large majority of the offices 
 of the State and General Governments. And he will there 
 find such proof, in the degrading fact, that perhaps nine out of 
 ten of those who, in these several modes, influence society , and 
 control the destinies of our country, are strangers to all that 
 deserves the name of literature and science. 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, is a faint picture of the state of that so- 
 ciety, into whose giddy vortex you will shortly be drawn. I 
 have deemed it my duty, thus hastily to sketch it to you, in 
 the strong relief of its lights and shadows, showing what is, 
 contrasted with what should be, that you may be the better 
 prepared to protect yourselves from the evils of the one, and 
 turn to your advantage the benefits of the other. And should 
 my humble effort produce that effect, even in a limited degree, 
 the event will be matter of cordial rejoicing to me, and will 
 unite hereafter with other kindred recollections, to gladden my 
 retrospect of the present occasion. 
 
 Unintentionally lengthy as my discourse has already been, in- 
 dulge me in a few more sentences before we part. Among 
 educated young men of ambition and enterprise, the current 
 of migration to the south is quite overwhelming — far beyond 
 what either reason dictates, or experience invites. But few 
 
V2 
 
 of the hope-inspired adventurers to the land of the pomegran- 
 ate, the fig, and the orange-tree, find there the el Dorado, which 
 they all anticipate, and hurry to enjoy. Early death, shatter- 
 ed health, and feil disappointment constitute the lot of a large 
 proportion of them. Yet still does the stream of adventure 
 roll on. 
 
 Why is this — especially why should the migration continue, 
 while prospects to the enterprising, in these more northerly 
 and healthy regions, are so bright and promising? True; as a 
 general rule, more wealth can be amassed, in the south, in a 
 given time, than in this northern section of the Valley. But 
 there the benefit of removal ends. ]n all other lespects, the 
 advantage is greatly in favour of the north. If the winters 
 are more severe, the summers are less enfeebling; and if agri- 
 culture is less profitable, manufacturing industry is more so. 
 Nor ought certain well known evils, not now to be mentioned, 
 inseparable from the condition of society in the south, to be 
 overlooked by those who think of migration. Be it remember- 
 ed, moreover, that in Indiana, as certainly as in Mississippi or 
 Arkansas, an honorable independence may be secured, by in- 
 dustry, perseverance, and laudable economy. 
 
 As relates to the improvement of the mind, and the attain- 
 ment of distinction in science and letters, professions 
 and the arts, these northern States have a great ascendency. 
 And that is a consideration not to be overlooked by those who 
 set a correct estimate on matters of mind. In most parts of 
 the South, there is a lamentable neglect of mental cultivation, 
 and a corresponding wantof literature and science. Young men, 
 who are allured by the love of gain, to repair to that gay and 
 relaxing region, abandon their studies, the moment of their 
 arrival, and devote all their leisure to social enjoyment — or 
 waste it perhaps in wild carousal, and fatal dissipation. Added 
 to other barriers, the force of fashion, and a wantof the excite- 
 ment of mental competition, are opposed to study, under the 
 bodily exhaustions of the south. In a word; the entire habits 
 and feelings of that region must be revolutionized, before it 
 ran be the birthplace or nursery of intellectual pre-eminence. 
 
. 73 
 
 For, let it never be forgotten by the youthful and aspiring, 
 that such pre-eminence is much more the product of labour 
 and perseverance, than of talents and genius — though, for the 
 attainment of it in the highest degree, both are essential. 
 
 Considerations like these should lead you to pause and pon- 
 der, before you exchange for the beamy and flower-clad land 
 of the sun, this soberer and less brilliant State where you have 
 been educated, which called into existence and bounteously 
 and affectionately sustains and cherishes your Alma Mater, 
 and in which perhaps most of you first saw the light. If your 
 preference be for "golden gains" shattered health, and minds 
 comparatively empty and enfeebled, hasten to the south. But 
 in case, your choice be, sound health, "golden opinions" a 
 competent — perhaps an affluent independence, and minds well 
 stored with science and learning, and accomplished in the arts, 
 remain where you are, practise industry corporeal and mental, 
 and economise your time and means, and your end will be at- 
 tained, and your desires gratified. Your course through life 
 will be useful and honorable, the esteem and applause of con- 
 temporaries will await you, and posterity will enrol you in 
 the list of their benefactors. 
 
 Farewell! — and, in whatever spots of earth you may fix 
 your abodes, and whatever occupations it may be your pleas- 
 ure to pursue, of this be assured; that my affectionate and fra- 
 ternal regard will attend you, accompanied by my earnest 
 wishes, that your lots may be as prosperous, and your days as 
 happy, as they can be rendered by competency and reputation, 
 the recollection of well-spent lives, peaceful consciences, and 
 an approving Heaven ! 
 

THOUGHTS 
 
 on 
 
 POPULAR AND LIBERAL EDUCATION, 
 
 WITH SOME DEFENCE OF 
 
 THE ENGLISH AND SAXON LANGUAGES, 
 
 IN THE FORM OF AN ADDRESS TO THE PHILOMATHEAN SOCIETY 
 OF INDIANA COLLEGE; 
 
 DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 28TH, 1836. 
 
 BY CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D. 
 
 PRINTED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 
 
 LEXINGTON, KY. 
 
 INTELLIGENCER PRINT. 
 
 1836. 
 
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