ries,--we find much to excite
cheering anticipations.

This country--this Commonwealth especially--has ever been distinguished
for being foremost in the maintenance of a benevolent and comprehensive
system of education. That system is, we believe, in the judgment of
foreigners, one of the most original things which America has produced.
Fortunately for the prosperity of the people who derive their support on
this rugged soil, their fathers were a class of men deeply imbued with
moral sentiment,--lovers of freedom and of knowledge; men who sought
that security of their principles in the spread of moral intelligence,
which the sword alone would in vain attempt to procure. "The hands that
wielded the axe or guided the canoe in the morning opened the page of
history and philosophy in the evening;" and it cannot be a matter of
surprise, that, counting their greatest wealth in their own industry and
resolution, they should at an early period turn their attention to the
important subject of education; and that they even denied themselves
many of the comforts of life, in order to secure the blessings which
might evolve therefrom.

The peculiarity of our system of government is, that it invests the
sovereignty in the people; and, as it has always been the policy of
every nation claiming to be civilized to educate those who were designed
to govern, it might naturally enough be inferred, that, in this country,
means would be provided whereby the whole people might receive an
education. And thus it is. The true object, therefore, of such a system
of instruction as the government supports, it must be conceded by all,
consists in qualifying the young to become good citizens,--in teaching
them not only what their duties are, but making them ready and willing
to perform them. We should discriminate between the object of common
schools and the object of colleges; between an institution intended to
inform every one of what every one should know, and one designed to fit
persons for particular spheres of life, by a course of instruction
which it is impracticable for all to pursue. A very large majority of
those who enter our colleges are desirous of acquiring that knowledge,
as well as discipline, which will prepare them most thoroughly for some
one of the learned professions: it is a course preparatory to one still
higher,--a gateway by which the industrious and sagacious may with
greater ease traverse the long and winding avenues of sci