the justice of the world is awakened, such as these will go on,
without admonition, and without provocation, to every extremity. Those
who have made the exhibition of the fourteenth of July are capable of
every evil. They do not commit crimes for their designs; but they form
designs that they may commit crimes. It is not their necessity, but
their nature, that impels them. They are modern philosophers, which when
you say of them, you express everything that is ignoble, savage, and
hard-hearted.

Besides the sure tokens which are given by the spirit of their
particular arrangements, there are some characteristic lineaments in the
general policy of your tumultuous despotism, which, in my opinion,
indicate, beyond a doubt, that no revolution whatsoever _in their
disposition_ is to be expected: I mean their scheme of educating the
rising generation, the principles which they intend to instil and the
sympathies which they wish to form in the mind at the season in which it
is the most susceptible. Instead of forming their young minds to that
docility, to that modesty, which are the grace and charm of youth, to an
admiration of famous examples, and to an averseness to anything which
approaches to pride, petulance, and self-conceit, (distempers to which
that time of life is of itself sufficiently liable,) they artificially
foment these evil dispositions, and even form them into springs of
action. Nothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of books
recommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form the
character of the age. Uncertain indeed is the efficacy, limited indeed
is the extent, of a virtuous institution. But if education takes in
_vice_ as any part of its system, there is no doubt but that it will
operate with abundant energy, and to an extent indefinite. The
magistrate, who in favor of freedom thinks himself obliged to suffer all
sorts of publications, is under a stricter duty than any other well to
consider what sort of writers he shall authorize, and shall recommend by
the strongest of all sanctions, that is, by public honors and rewards.
He ought to be cautious how he recommends authors of mixed or ambiguous
morality. He ought to be fearful of putting into the hands of youth
writers indulgent to the peculiarities of their own complexion, lest
they should teach the humors of the professor, rather than the
principles of the science. He ought, above all, to be cautious in
recommending any writer who