tion and government. The
common sense of the multitude is often an invaluable corrective of
speculative error; but the impulses and strong prejudices of
communities, though calculated to sweep along with them the judgments of
all, are mostly pernicious, and sometimes dangerous in the extreme. The
true remedy for these evils and dangers is, to employ in the management
of the daily press, the noblest intellect, combined with the most
incorruptible purity of motive. Commanding the entire confidence of the
nation, and worthy of it, the lessons of this great teacher--the central
light-giving orb of civilization--will be received with reverence and
gratitude, and with a benign and fructifying influence, something like
that which the sun sheds on the world of nature.

A French philosopher, writing in 1840, says of us:

'This universal colony, notwithstanding the eminent temporal
advantages of its present position, must be regarded as, in fact,
in all important respects, more remote from a true social
reorganization than the nations from whom it is derived, and to
whom it will owe, in course of time, its final regeneration. The
philosophical induction into that ulterior state is not to be
looked for in America--whatever may be the existing illusions about
the political superiority of a society in which the elements of
modern civilization are, with the exception of industrial activity,
most imperfectly developed.'

It may be admitted that we are yet somewhat behind the foremost nations
of Europe in the higher walks of philosophy, and certainly in the
practical application of true social principles, which, as yet, we do
not fully comprehend, even if they do. But the conclusion of this author
cannot be sound. However moderate may be our standard of knowledge in
the United States, this knowledge, such as it is, is more widely
diffused among the people who are to profit by it, than in any other
country. If our attainments be comparatively small in philosophic
statesmanship, the whole population partakes more or less in such
progress as we have made; for education is universal, and whatever ideas
are generated in the highest order of minds, soon become the familiar
possession of all to the extremities of the land. Government yields with
little opposition or delay to the interests and intelligence, and it may
be, to the ignorance of the people: there is no other nation on the
globe