to me, I see everywhere a
disposition to decry the ancient and original authors, which I deem far
superior to the modern, and from which the best modern writers have
drawn the finest parts of their productions.

"There is another circumstance still more afflictive to a man who is
attached, as I am, to a republican government, and one that I perceive
has not occurred to you. This is that the equal distribution of estates
and the small property of our citizens, both of which seem connected
with our form of government, if not essential to it, actually tend to
depress the sciences. Science demands leisure and money. Our citizens
have property only to give their sons a four years' education, a time
scarcely sufficient to give them a relish for learning, and far
inadequate to wide and profound researches. As soon as a young man has
closed this period of study, and while he is at the beginning of the
alphabet of science, he must betake himself to a profession, he must
hurry through a few books,--which, by the way, are rarely original
works, but compilations and abridgments,--and then must enter upon
practice, and get his living as well as he can. And as to libraries, we
have no such things. There are not more than three or four tolerable
libraries in America, and these are extremely imperfect. Great numbers
of the most valuable authors have not found their way across the
Atlantic.

"But if our young men had more time to read, their estates will not
enable them to purchase the books requisite to make a learned man. And
this inconvenience, resulting from our government and the state of
society, I know not how to remedy. As this, however, is the government
to which you are attached, you will certainly do us a great service if
you can devise a plan for avoiding its disadvantages. And I can further
inform you that any application to legislatures for money will be
unsuccessful. The utmost we can do is to squeeze a little money
occasionally from the public treasuries to furnish buildings and a
professor or two. But as to libraries, public or private, men who do not
understand their value will be the last to furnish the means of
procuring them. Besides, our rage for gain absorbs all other
considerations; science is a secondary object, and a man who has grown
suddenly from a dunghill, by a fortunate throw of the die, avoids a man
of learning as you would a tiger. There are exceptions to this remark,
and some men of taste, here and t