ual born
into the community, and as the necessary qualification for the enjoyment
of social privileges,--as in the United States. The English Christ
Hospital boys are badged: Napoleon's Polytechnic pupils were badged; so
are the Czar's orphan charge. Wherever the meddling or ostentatious
charity of antique times is in existence,--times when the idea of
liberty was low and confined,--this badging is to be looked for; and
also wherever it is necessary to the purposes of the potentate to keep a
register of the young subjects who may become his instruments or his
foes:--but where education is absolutely universal, where any citizen
has a right to put every child, not otherwise educated, into the
school-house of his township, and where the rising generation are
destined to take care of themselves, and legislate after their own will,
no badging will be found. This apparently trifling fact is worth the
attention of the observer.

The extent of popular education is a fact of the deepest significance.
Under despotisms there will be the smallest amount of it; and in
proportion to the national idea of the dignity and importance of
man,--idea of liberty, in short,--will be its extent, both in regard to
the number it comprehends, and to the enlargement of their studies. The
universality of education is inseparably connected with a lofty idea of
liberty; and till the idea is realized in a constantly expanding system
of national education, the observer may profitably note for reflection
the facts whether he is surrounded on a frontier by a crowd of whining
young beggars, or whether he sees a parade of charity scholars,--these
all in blue caps and yellow stockings, and those all in white tippets
and green aprons; or whether he falls in with an annual or quarterly
assembly of teachers, met to confer on the best principles and methods
of carrying on an education which is itself a matter of course.

In countries where there is any popular Idea of Liberty, the
universities are considered its stronghold, from their being the places
where the young, active, hopeful, and aspiring meet,--the youths who are
soon to be citizens, and who have here the means of daily communication
of their ideas, for many years together. It would be an interesting
inquiry how many revolutions, warlike or bloodless, have issued from
seats of learning; and yet more, how many have been planned for which
the existing powers, or the habits of society, have been too st