which it furnished, the promptitude and
facility which it communicated, and the wide field it opened for analogy
and illustration; giving them thus, on every subject, a larger view and
a broader range, as well for discussion as for the government of their
own conduct.

Literature sometimes, and pretensions to it much oftener disgusts, by
appearing to hang loosely on the character, like something foreign or
extraneous, not a part, but an ill-adjusted appendage; or by seeming to
overload and weigh it down by its unsightly bulk, like the productions
of bad taste in architecture, where there is messy and cumbrous ornament
without strength or solidity of column. This has exposed learning, and
especially classical learning, to reproach. Men have seen that it might
exist without mental superiority, without vigor, without good taste,
and without utility. But in such cases classical learning has only
not inspired natural talent, or, at most, it has but made original
feebleness of intellect, and natural bluntness of perception, something
more conspicuous. The question, after all, if it be a question, is,
whether literature, ancient as well as modern, does not assist a good
understanding, improve natural good taste, add polished armor to native
strength, and render its possessor, not only more capable of deriving
private happiness from contemplation and reflection, but more
accomplished also for action in the affairs of life, and especially for
public action. Those whose memories we now honor were learned men; but
their learning was kept in its proper place, and made subservient to
the uses and objects of life. They were scholars, not common nor
superficial; but their scholarship was so in keeping with their
character, so blended and inwrought, that careless observers, or bad
judges, not seeing an ostentatious display of it, might infer that it
did not exist; forgetting, or not knowing, that classical learning
in men who act in conspicuous public stations, perform duties which
exercise the faculty of writing, or address popular deliberative, or
judicial bodies, is often felt where it is little seen, and sometimes
felt more effectually because it is not seen at all.

But the cause of knowledge, in a more enlarged sense, the cause of
general knowledge and of a popular education, had no warmer friends,
nor more powerful advocates, than Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson. On this
foundation they knew the whole republican system rested; and