system of
government, but of developing the human faculties, if introduced into
our schools. They are full of objects for comparison. By comparison the
mind is taught the difference between things; comparisons are at the
bottom of all useful and practical knowledge. "They are suggestive,"
says Prof. Agassiz, "of further comparisons. When the objects of nature
are the subjects of comparison, the mind is insensibly led to make new
inquiries, is filled with delight at every step of progress it makes in
nature's ever young and blooming fields, and study becomes a pleasure.
No American knows what a good country he has got until he visits Europe
and draws comparisons between the condition of the laboring classes
there and those at home. Even in London, about half the people have
neither church-room nor school-room."

The _Annual Report of the Auditor of Public accounts of the State of
Louisiana_ abounds with objects which have only to be compared in their
various relations to one another to give the mind a clear perception of
the operation and practical working of some of the most important
natural laws and moral truths lying at the bottom of American
civilization and progress. Without comparisons they are like
hieroglyphical characters telling nothing. Comparisons will decipher
them and make them speak a language full of instruction, which every one
can understand.

The more thorough the education in European colleges, or in American
schools on a similar model, the more there will be to _unlearn_ before
American institutions can be understood or their value appreciated, and
the less will the American citizen be qualified to vote understandingly
at the polls. The reason is, that the system of education which directs
the policy of goverments founded upon artificial distinctions, is from
necessity inimical to a government founded upon natural distinctions and
moral truth. Education on the British model has set the North against
the South, and has waylaid every step of American progress, from the
acquisition of Louisiana to the last foot of land acquired from Mexico
or the Indians, and it now stands across the path of the all-conquering
march of American civilization into Cuba, Central America, and Mexico.
The vicious system of education founded upon the European model has
almost reconquered Massachusetts and several other Northern States,
converting them, in many essential particulars, into British provinces.
The people of th