h and laborious service to which it is
devoted.

"But, apart from the influence of such scenes and their associations,
there are more palpable reasons, which especially at this day, call
for a great increase of books and apparatus in our literary
institutions.

"The time has been, when a few worn out text books, descending from
one generation of students to another, were thought sufficient for the
purposes of a liberal education. But, in that wider range of
investigation, to which the mind is now directed, in all departments
of study, every source of information requires to be laid open. It is
not the lesson from a single author, that is alone sufficient to be
committed, but the _subject_, of which possibly a score have treated,
that requires to be examined and understood. And neither can the
teacher nor the student feel himself adequate to the services before
him while any valuable authority, on the broad field of his inquiries,
is not accessible, or any means of illustration are unattempted. But
these facilities are clearly beyond the resources of individuals, and
however voluntary associations of students may, to some extent,
compensate for private inability, there is a point beyond which public
sentiment declares this to be a burden; and it demands that the
institutions themselves, which proffer the benefits of education,
should supply the means by which this end is to be attained. The
question between different places of education, is coming to be
decided, more frequently, by reference to the comparative advantages
which they afford in this respect; and, however it may be necessary
that a college should hold out some show of other accommodation, yet
neither the convenience of its situation, nor the splendor of its
edifices, nor the number and variety of its departments and
instructors, will be held in estimation, without corresponding
advantages for an extended course of study.

"In regard to a course of study, it were almost adventurous for one
without the advantages of experience on this subject, to remark beyond
what is already obvious, that it should be simply accommodated to the
most perfect discipline and instruction of the mind. And yet, perhaps,
it were more presumptuous to suppose, that improvement in this respect
has already reached its limits. The changes which have taken place,
and are still occurring in the methods of instruction, at the
preparatory schools, may be hoped so far to hasten the develo