ought to be the objects of his steady pursuit.

Perhaps some teacher of steady intellectual habits and a well balanced
mind may think that this picture is fanciful, and that there is little
danger that such consequences will ever actually result from such a
cause. But far from having exaggerated the results, I am of opinion that
I might have gone much farther. There is no doubt that a great many
instances have occurred, in which some simple idea like the one I have
alluded to, has led the unlucky conceiver of it, in his eager pursuit
far deeper into the difficulty, than I have here supposed. He gets into
a contention with the school committee, that formidable foe to the
projects of all scheming teachers; and it would not be very difficult to
find many actual cases, where the individual has, in consequence of some
such idea, quietly planned and taken measures to establish some new
institution, where he can carry on, unmolested, his plans, and let the
world see the full results of his wonderful discoveries.

We have in our country a very complete system of literary institutions,
so far as external organization will go, and the prospect of success is
far more favorable in efforts to carry these institutions into more
complete and prosperous operation, than in plans for changing them, or
substituting others in their stead. Were it not that such a course would
be unjust to individuals, a long and melancholy catalogue might easily
be made out, of abortive plans which have sprung up in the minds of
young men, in the manner I have described, and which after perhaps
temporary success, have resulted in partial or total failure. These
failures are of every kind. Some are school-books on a new plan, which
succeed in the inventor's hand, chiefly on account of the spirit which
carried it into effect; but which in ordinary hands, and under ordinary
circumstances, and especially after long continued use, have failed of
exhibiting any superiority. Others are institutions, commenced with
great zeal by the projectors, and which succeed just as long as that
zeal continues. Zeal will make any thing succeed for a time. Others are
new plans of instruction or government, generally founded on some good
principle carried to an extreme, or made to grow into exaggerated and
disproportionate importance. Examples almost innumerable, of these
things might be particularized, if it were proper, and it would be found
upon examination, that the amount of