ollower of the
brave Frenchman, contrasts with his ideal of freedom and happiness, the
laws, institutions, habits, and miseries, which he regards as
inseparable from the colonial relation. As in the rebellion of 1838,
whatever disaffection now prevails in British America, is probably
shared much less largely by the English than by the French population.
Political, religious, or sectarian novels, however, executed never so
cleverly, are but sugared pills at which the appetite revolts as soon as
the quality is discovered.

DR. WEBSTER, PRESIDENT OF THE NEW-YORK FREE ACADEMY.

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Throughout the world an extraordinary degree of attention has recently
been directed to systems and means of Education, and the truth has at
length been generally recognized that the stability and glory of nations
must depend upon the intelligence and virtue of their inhabitants. In
our own country, which is most of all interested in the diffusion of
knowledge, unexampled efforts are being made not only for the general
improvement of the culture offered in the seminaries, but for that
elevation of the laboring classes which, whatever may be said by
ambitious feeble-minds, seeking for reputation as reformers of the
social system, is really to be found only in a wise development of
individual capacities for the strife that has been and must be waged for
individual well-being.

There have been many improvements suggested or realized lately in
collegiate education. We have been gratified with Professor Sedgwick's
admirable treatise on the subject, which, at this time, is receiving in
England that consideration to which any thing from the mind of one so
distinguished is entitled. In this country we think no one, upon the
whole, has written more wisely than Dr. Wayland, whose views are to be
illustrated in the future government of the university over which he has
so long presided. But we shall not be satisfied until we have a great
institution, as much above the existing colleges as they are above the
common schools in the wards of the city, to which bachelors of arts only
shall be admitted, and to which they, whether coming from Harvard,
Oberlin, or Virginia, shall be admitted without charge.

The establishment of the NEW-YORK FREE ACADEMY is suggestive of many
things, and of this among them. We suppose a discussion whether our
colleges supply the _degree_ of education suitable to our general
condition, could be entertained o