nly by dunces; the point whether they
furnish the kind and quality of culture to fit men for efficient and
just action, in such public affairs and private occupations as the
humblest may be called to in a free state, has been amply discussed, and
it is decided against the colleges.

Our schools, called colleges, have for the most part been fashioned
after the universities of Europe, but they have in all cases been
inadequately endowed, and without the internal police which is necessary
to their vigorous administration. Nine-tenths of the professors are
incompetent, and quite one half of them, in any thing worthy the name of
university could claim admission only to the class of freshmen; while
those who are capable of a reputable performance of their duties--so
uncertain are the revenues of the institutions to which they are
attached--are very frequently compelled to modify regulations and relax
discipline to such a degree that the colleges become only schools of
vice or nurseries of indolence.

The deficiency is of _authority_. It is useless to talk about courses of
study, or any thing else, until the discipline of the schools is as
absolute as that of the camp, the factory, or the counting-room. We are
inclined to believe that the usefulness of the Military Academy at West
Point,--which has furnished so large a proportion of the best civil
engineers, lawyers, physicians, and divines, as well as the soldiers who
and who _alone_ have conducted our armies to real glory,--we are
inclined to believe that this justly celebrated school owes all its
triumphs to its rigid laws and independence of popular clamor.

Discipline is every thing. Without it a man is but a fair model in wood,
which by it is turned to an engine of iron, and by opportunity furnished
with water and fire to impel it on a resistless course through the
world. And a man must be governed by others before he will govern
himself. The silliness about _liberty_ which is sometimes obtruded into
discussions of this subject, is fit for very young children and very old
women. There is no desirable liberty but in obedience. The cant about it
sometimes illustrates only a pitiable feebleness of intellect, but it
more frequently discloses some kind or degree of wilful licentiousness.
The "voluntary system" does very well in the churches. It will not do at
all in the colleges. St. Paul is always found even with the wisdom of
the age in which he is quoted, and he tells us