were already in America. All parties in England, some by one artifice
and some by another, were ultimately led to promote the British policy
of negro abolitionism. From England it was brought over to the United
States, took root and grew so rapidly as soon to become a most
disturbing element in both church and state. We had no colleges at the
North, and scarcely any churches which knew the advantages humanity and
Christianity derived from the mutual aid the black and white races
afford each other. The most of them are and were virtually European
colleges located in America. This has enabled those learned men in Great
Britain, who guide and direct British policy, to make a nose of wax of
the great body of the educated classes in the United States. The
prominence given to the Latin language, to the neglect of the Greek and
Hebrew, in our schools and colleges, has greatly tended to fill the
heads of the students with monarchical ideas, and to prevent them from
understanding and appreciating the institutions of their own country.
The study of Homer and the Greek classics favors genuine republicanism,
by fostering a high-toned moral virtue, and by creating a love for
nature and for political institutions founded upon her laws; while the
study of Virgil, and other Latin text-books, used in our schools and
colleges, has a strong tendency to lead to a sickly sentimental
admiration for nominal instead of real freedom, and for governments
founded upon usurpations and artificial distinctions, as that of the
Caesars was, and as that of Great Britain is. There is as much difference
between Homer and Virgil as between nature and art. The Latin, being a
derivative language, and of very little use, would long since have been
banished from the schools, but for the aid monarchy derives from its
binding men of letters, as Virgil bound the Muses, to the footstool of
thrones, to flatter the frail humanity thereon with the incense of
divine honors. Homer's Muses, like true Americans, pay no higher honors
to the diadem on the king's head than to the gaudy plumage of the
peacock's tail. Young America would derive great advantages from an
intimate acquaintance with Homer. He wrote in a language which gives to
all the arts and sciences their technical terms. Hence, the previous
study of the Greek makes the acquaintance of the various sciences
comparatively easy to the learner. The Greek and Hebrew being original
languages, can be acquired in muc