d: yet we take the cotton that grows
at the doors of their factories, bring it 13,000 miles to this country,
manufacture it here where labor is so expensive, take it back 13,000
miles, and undersell the native manufacturer. Labor is dearer in America
than in any part of the world, and yet we dread and fear their
competition more than that of any other nation. The reason of all this
is obvious. All the advantages which the Hindoo possesses are far more
than counterbalanced by his intellectual inferiority to ourselves; while
we dread the American, with reason, because he is, intellectually at
least, our equal, and, considering the general intelligence and good
conduct of the hands he employs, our superior. To what cause, except
that of a decided superiority in captains and crews, can we attribute
the fact that the Americans have deprived us of so large a portion of
the whale fishery, as in a measure to have monopolized it? American
clocks, which we now see in almost every hall and cottage, ought to set
us thinking. We may be sure of this, the commerce of the world will fall
into the hands of those who are most deserving of it. If political or
philanthropic considerations should fail to show us the necessity of
educating our people, commercial considerations will one day remind us
of what we ought to have done. We can only hope that the reminder may
not come too late.

Enlightenment is the great necessity and the great glory of our age;
ignorance is the most expensive, and most dangerous, and most pressing
of all our evils. Among ourselves we find a variety of motives
converging upon this conclusion. The statesman has become aware that an
enlightened population is more orderly, more submissive, in times of
public distress, to the necessity of their circumstances; not so easily
led away by agitators; in short, more easily and more cheaply governed.
The political economist is well aware of the close connection between
general intelligence and successful enterprise and industry. The greater
the number of enlightened and intelligent persons, the greater is the
number of those whose thoughts are at work in subduing nature, improving
arts, and increasing national wealth. The benevolent man is anxious that
all should share those enjoyments and advantages which he himself finds
to be the greatest. Both Churchman and Dissenter know well enough that
they are under the necessity of educating. And the manufacturer, too,
who is employi